![]() ![]() Why are charities warning the sector could collapse? ![]() Additionally, a joint statement provided by care sector representative bodies Learning Disability Voices, Care England and the Voluntary Organisations Disability Group put the total funding gap over the next four years at an estimated £600 million. How much money is owed?Ĭharities say that the six years of backdated payments sought by HMRC could reach at least £400 million. National minimum wage legislation published in the same year as the DBEIS guidelines also says that a worker can only be considered to be “available” when “awake for the purposes of working”. Guidance issued in 2015 by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (DBEIS) similarly says: “A worker who is found to be working, even though they are asleep, is entitled to the national minimum or NLW for the entire time they are at work.”īut the picture is not 100% clear, with the judge at this year’s employment appeal tribunal emphasising that the factors set out in the Mencap case needed to be carefully considered in relation to different workers’ circumstances. This followed a 2014 case heard by the same tribunal, relating to a care worker supporting three disabled adults in their home, which deemed her to be eligible for the NMW while asleep. ![]() What’s behind the row?Īn employment appeal tribunal in May ruled that Mencap must pay a worker the national minimum wage (NMW), as opposed to a fixed rate of £29.05, for sleep-in hours as part of care for two vulnerable adults. But a recent ruling has determined that workers should instead be paid minimum wage for these hours – and HMRC is demanding, by September, back payments of up to six years. This week, UK care providers warned that the sector could face collapse, as a result of HMRC chasing them for hundreds of millions of pounds in backdated payments for employees providing sleep-in care services.įor many years, care workers have been paid a flat-rate allowance of around £35 per shift for hours spent sleeping at residential facilities or at service users’ homes, in order to provide on-call care around the clock. ![]()
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