The Contribution Of EU Workers In The Social Care Workforce In Scotland 2022

2. Methodology

The research comprised two consecutive strands:

1. a mixed-mode survey of employers from across the social care sector

2. follow up qualitative interviews among a selection of employers who took part in the survey.

Survey of employers

The over-arching objective of the survey was to provide robust information on the number of EU workers in specific social care sub-sectors (adult day care, care at home, day care of children, childminding, housing support, and nurse agencies) that would allow direct comparison to the results from 2018.

Sampling

The Scottish Government provided Ipsos with details of services from the Care Inspectorate database of providers. The sample frame included the basic public-domain details of the in-scope service providers such as email addresses and telephone numbers. It also included information on employer type (public, private, voluntary) and details on registered capacity and number of staff, all of which were used for setting quotas for the telephone fieldwork.

Services in the sample frame were categorised to match the categories used in the Scottish Social Services Council workforce data in the 2018 study. While a similar approach was taken for the current study, a number of additional types of care-service were included: adoption services, fostering services, offender accommodation service, residential child care, and school care accommodation. (Table 2.1). These were all grouped into "other" sub-sector and excluded from the main analysis. The latest SSSC workforce data^[5] was used to set survey targets.

Typology of specified care sectors

Sub-sector: Adult Day Care.

Care-service: Support service subtype other than care at home

Sub-sector: Care Home for Adults.

Care-service: Care Home for Adults

Sub-sector: Childminding.

Care-service: Childminding

Sub-sector: Day Care of Children.

Care-service: Childcare agency, Day Care of Children Service

Sub-sector: Housing support/Care at home.

Care-service: Adult Placement Service, Housing Support Service, Support Service subtype (care at home)

Sub-sector: Nurse Agency.

Care-service: Nurse Agency

Sub-sector: Other.

Care-service: Adoption services, Fostering services, Offender Accommodation Service, Residential Child Care, School Care Accommodation

Cleaning and editing of the sample information was carried out and duplicate entries (identified through email addresses and phone numbers) removed. Survey recipients were invited to respond in relation to a specific named service only.

The following variables were created:

• Employer type (public, private, voluntary).
• Nuts2 region (Eastern Scotland, South Western Scotland, North Eastern Scotland, Highlands and Islands). This was derived based on local authority.
• Threefold urban/rural classification (Urban, Accessible Rural, Remote Rural). This was matched into the data using postcodes of services. In some cases, there was missing information on postcodes which meant not all services could be classified and there were limitations on the associated analyses possible.

The sampling strategy balanced the need for precision across all sectors with the ability to analyse results by sub-sector and subgroup variables such as employer type and size of employer. Targets were set based on trying to minimise confidence intervals at the sub-sector level^[6]. Population figures were taken from the latest available Social Services Workforce Data Report 2021^[7]. Given the small number of organisations in two sub-sectors – Nurse Agencies and Adult Day Care – it was recognised that this would not be achievable given the very high response rate required.

Table 2.2: Population information by sub-sector and sampling targets

Sub-sector	Staff (SSSC 2020)	Services (SSSC 2020)	Average staff per service	Target number of interviews
Adult Day Care	6,650	420	15.8	145
Care Homes for Adults	52,920	1,072	49.4	190
Childminding	4,300	4,236	1.02	210
Day Care of Children	38,300	3,554	10.8	210
Housing Support/ Care at Home	74,870	2,093	35.8	200
Nurse Agency	3,270	112	29.8	28
Other	11,250	494	22.8	100
Total	191,560	11,981	16.0	1,083

The survey used a mixed mode approach to maximise the number of returns and the precision of the estimates among each sub-sector. All organisations were first invited to participate online, with a telephone survey following afterwards. The telephone interviewing allowed providers of the appropriate type to be targeted so that that precision of estimates is maximised across all sub-sectors.

The telephone fieldwork was run from Ipsos' Telephone Centre in Edinburgh. Fieldwork was targeted to try to achieve the target number of interviews by sub-sector overall and two additional quotas were set to help ensure the achieved sample was representative.

• average number of staff per organisation (above and below the median values) for all sub-sectors bar childminding
• employer type (public, private and voluntary) for the three largest sub-sectors, namely Housing Support, Day Care of Children, and Care Homes

In all, the survey was open for a period of just over five weeks, from 11 February 2022 to the 18 March 2022. An e-mail address and helpline phone number for the survey was in operation throughout, so that the research team could answer queries and resolve any technical problems.

Questionnaire design

The starting point for the questionnaire was the version used for the initial study. This was deliberately kept as short as possible to help encourage participation among the target audience and thus help ensure the robustness of the results. No major changes were made.

The core of the questionnaire comprised a series of pre-coded items to collect the total number of staff currently working in the services sampled – including, separately, the numbers of auxiliary staff, care staff/practitioners, NMC registered nurses and managers – and the proportions in each case who were EU nationals.

In addition, the questionnaire included a small number of questions to collect information on:

• the extent to which employers had found it easier or more difficult to recruit and retain workers over the preceding 12 months
• the extent to which employers had found it easier or more difficult to recruit and retain EU workers specifically over the preceding 12 months
• whether any EU workers had left the service in the last 12 months and the reasons for this

One additional question was included in the questionnaire. This asked for views on changes to the UK's immigration policy and impact on their ability to meet their recruitment needs.

Following the main fieldwork an error was discovered in the script that meant that most eligible participants were routed past this additional question. In scope participants who had agreed to be recontacted were reapproach to complete this one question.

Response rate and achieved sample profile

The survey achieved 1,540 complete responses from services, covering 35,896 staff. Table 2.3 shows the profile of the issued over the achieved sample. The population figures are based on the received sample. Excluding the 'other' category, the total number of responses was 1,441.

Table 2.3: Issued versus achieved sample profile

	Population		Achieved sample (all)		Response rate
	N	% of population	Number of responses	% of overall response	%
Sub-sector
Adult Day Care	390	4%	106	7%	27%
Care Home for Adults	1,050	9%	255	17%	24%
Childminding	3,998	36%	354	23%	9%
Day Care of Children	3,566	32%	394	26%	11%
Housing Support/Care at Home	1,482	13%	325	21%	22%
Nurse Agency	114	1%	7	1%	6%
Other	500	5%	99	6%	20%
Employer type
Public	2567	23%	215	14%	8%
Private	6534	59%	867	56%	13%
Voluntary	1999	18%	458	30%	23%
NUTS2 region
North East	1080	10%	146	10%	14%
Eastern	4564	41%	627	41%	14%
South West	4164	38%	560	36%	13%
Highlands and Islands	1292	12%	207	13%	16%
Urban-rural threefold classification
Rest of Scotland	8601	77%	1194	77%	14%
Accessible Rural	1413	13%	197	13%	14%
Remote Rural	718	6%	98	6%	14%
Missing postcode	368	3%	51	3%	14%
Total	11,100	100%	1,540	100%	14%

The achieved sample was close to the issued sample for most of the key variables covered. Participants in the voluntary sector and the private sector were more likely to respond than those in the public sector (23% and 13% compared to 8%). There was some variation by sub-sector. Despite focused attention on the nurse agency sub-sector at the telephone fieldwork stage, the final response rate was only 6%.

Data cleaning and analysis

Data preparation

Given the number of logic checks that were incorporated into the online and telephone scripts, the data cleaning required was minimal. A small number of cases were dropped from the final dataset due the high proportion of missing data. Outlier values were manually checked and key analysis variables were derived.

Total staff for each service was derived from the counts given at the breakdown of staff within each category (auxiliary, care staff, nurses, managers, other staff). This was checked against the total staff figure given within the survey. Similarly, the total number of EU staff was calculated in the same way. Weights were created to correct for disproportionate sampling by sector during the analysis.

Analysis

The analysis approach replicated that undertaken in 2018. The percentage of staff who were EU staff was calculated from the survey data. The population figures from the Social Services Council Workforce Data Report 2020^[8] were used to create the estimate of the total number of staff, except for staff from nurse agencies.

The differing approach for nurse agencies replicated what was done in 2018. This relates to a discrepancy between the two datasets, with the seven nurse agency services surveyed reporting a total headcount of 526, an average headcount of 75.1. This was higher than the 29.2 headcount reported in the SSSC data. The discrepancy reflects differences in the questions asked in the two studies. In the survey, participants were asked to include all workers, whereas the Care Inspectorate analysis collects data on nurses only^[9], as registration is only with respect to agency nurses. To address this, the average number of staff in the nurse agencies surveyed was multiplied by the number of services in the SSSC data to produce the total number of nurse agency staff.

The estimates presented in this report include lower and upper confidence intervals.

Qualitative interviewing

The objective of the qualitative research was to complement the survey findings with insights into the challenges faced by social care services including the role and contribution of EU workers in the social care sector. More specifically, the work sought to provide a deeper understanding of employers' circumstances, experiences and perspectives, any specific challenges they were facing, or concerns they had, including the impact of Brexit.

Sampling and recruitment

Prospective employers for interview were identified from among a pool who had taken part in the survey and agreed at that stage to be recontacted for follow up research.

A total of 10 employers were interviewed from across five different sub-sectors; 2 from care homes for adults, 2 from nurse agencies, 2 from children's day care services, 2 from housing support/care at home services and 2 from adult day care services. The achieved sample also represented a mixture of service types (local authority, third sector and private sector) and size, as set out in Table 2.4.

Table 2.4: Profile of achieved qualitative sample of employers

	Nurse agency	Care home	Children's day care	Adult day care	Housing support/care in home	Total
Local authority		2		1		3
Private Sector	2		1			3
Third sector			1	1	2	4
1-10 employees		1	1			2
11-50 employees		1	1	1	2	5
51+ employees	2			1		3

All of the qualitative interviews were conducted by telephone. Fieldwork took place between 24 March and 10 April 2022.

Analysis

The qualitative interviews were digitally recorded with participants' permission and in most cases transcribed for analysis purposes. The transcripts (along with raw interview notes) were then systematically analysed to identify the substantive themes which emerged in relation to each question in the discussion guide, along with key points and illustrative verbatim comments. This ensured that the analysis of the data was rigorous, balanced and accurate, and that key messages or concepts were brought out. It was also flexible enough to allow links and connections across different themes or sub-themes to be made, and for moments of interpretive insight and inspiration to be recorded.

Interpreting the data

Survey data

Survey findings represent the views of a sample of the population concerned, and not the entire population, so they are subject to sampling tolerances, meaning that not all differences will be statistically significant. Confidence intervals are shown for all key estimates.

Where percentages do not sum to 100%, this may be due to computer rounding, the exclusion of 'don't know' categories or multiple answers. Throughout the report, an asterisk (*) denotes any value of less than half a percent and a dash (-) denotes zero.

Qualitative data

Unlike survey research, qualitative social research does not aim to produce a quantifiable or generalisable summary of population attitudes, but to identify and explore the different issues and themes relating to the subject being researched. The assumption is that issues and themes affecting participants reflect issues and themes in the wider population concerned. Although the extent to which they apply to the wider population, or specific sub-groups, cannot be quantified, the value of qualitative research is in identifying the range of different issues involved and the way in which these impact on people.

Ethics

Ipsos is committed to ethical practice in every element of the research process. This work was carried out in accordance with:

• ISO 20252, the international quality assurance standard specific to market research
• The Social Research Association guidelines and the Market Research Society (MRS) Code of Conduct and MRS Company Partners
• The Scottish Government's Ethics Guidance for Social Researchers