Social care - personal assistants: current data sources and future work

Executive Summary

The Personal Assistant (PA) workforce is a heterogenous and fragmented segment of the social care workforce, containing several distinct groups of PAs i.e. full-time, part-time, self-employed, directly employed, publicly funded, privately funded, urban-based, rural-based etc.

Consequently, attempts to capture the size and composition of this workforce face a number of obstacles, as there is a lack of regularly collected statistics that are able to sufficiently capture the PA workforce. There are only two data sources that are regularly collected which provide insight into the size and composition of the PA workforce and both are known to be incomplete. Additionally, there are a number of standalone datasets that provide snapshots of the workforce, at specific moments in time, but these also have some known limitations. Figure 1 (below) visualises the range of data sources available and summarises their content and limitations.

Of the two data sources that are regularly collected, Public Health Scotland’s (PHS) annual Insights in Social Care dashboards provide some insight to the potential size of the workforce based on data returns that detail employer-side statistics. One dashboard details the number of people receiving direct payments as part of their care package – 10,035 in 2021/22 - some of whom will be PA employers; another dashboard details the number of “personal assistance contracts” – 3,115 in 2021/22 - by local authority, however the data in both dashboards are known to be incomplete due to missing or incomplete data returns from Local Authorities/Health and Social Care Partnerships.

Since 2022, Self Directed Support Scotland (SDSS) has also begun regularly producing a survey of the PA workforce. Thus far there have been two editions of this survey: one in 2022 and one in 2023. However, it cannot provide a headcount estimate of the PA workforce, as it samples from a list of known PAs who registered for the Scottish Government £500 Thank You Payment during the COVID-19 pandemic, which in turn had eligibility criteria that may have excluded a number of PAs, including those working for persons aged under 16, and also may not have had 100% coverage amongst eligible PAs for reasons below. As a result, the PA survey, which samples from this database is unlikely to capture elements of the workforce that remain unknown. Additionally, response rates to this survey remain low. Whilst 4,799 PAs were recognised as eligible for the COVID thank you payment, only 912 responded to the first edition of the survey (19.0% of known workforce) and 798 to the 2023 survey.

In addition to these two regularly collected data sources, there are the following standalone datasets that provide snapshots of different segments of the PA workforce at specific moments in time:

1. Records of the £500 Thank You Payment administered by Scotland Excel (SXL) on behalf of the Scottish Government to Health and Social Care workers during the pandemic which registered 4,799 PAs as eligible for payment. However, eligibility criteria for the payments will have meant that a number of groups may be underrepresented or unrepresented within the total number of PAs registered. Details on this can be found below.

2. A 2010 report on the PA workforce commissioned by the Scottish Government with the purpose of identifying issues faced by self-directed support (SDS) users as employers, and PAs as their employees. This report was not intended to provide quantitative insights on the PA workforce but did estimate that 1,183 PAs were employed by SDS users in 2010. However, there is a lack of clarity on how this figure was reached, so it is not possible to say whether this figure is correct or not, or whether the PA workforce has grown significantly since 2010.

3. A 2021/22 notification from the Independent Living Fund Scotland (ILFS) to the Scottish Government that they funded 464 PA employers in 2021/22 – however ILFS does not regularly or officially report on these individuals.

It is not possible to create a headcount estimation for the PA workforce from any of these datasets, whether alone or in combination. In order to create such an estimate new and/or improved sources of data will be necessary. At present, there are four ongoing avenues of exploration for this kind of improvement:

1. There are ongoing plans to require all PAs to register with Disclosure Scotland for the Protection of Vulnerable Groups (PVG) scheme – such a move should provide a reasonable estimate of PAs employed. This mandatory aspect of the PVG Scheme will come into force on 1st April 2025.

It should be noted that this estimate will not include:

• where the PA is either a family member who lives in the same household (or the PA shares a household with the individual receiving care)
• where the PA has a personal relationship with the person receiving care and there is no commercial benefit

2. Self-directed support leads are in ongoing talks with the Scottish Government about providing data on the number of SDS option 1 recipients who are PA employers. This would allow for comparison with Public Health Scotland’s (PHS) Insights dashboards, particularly on the question of how many of the 10,035 SDS option 1 recipients are PA employers.

3. Self Directed Support Scotland (SDSS) has ongoing plans to survey PA payroll providers which would allow for an estimate of the average number of PAs employed per PA employer.

4. SDSS is commencing a quality mapping exercise by surveying people who access Self-Directed Support (SDS) on “the role of Independent Support in making SDS work for people in Scotland.” Data from this project will include the ratio of PAs and PA Employers who access Independent Support compared with those who don’t, which may provide further insight into data gathered directly from the payroll provider survey and support workforce estimates.

These four measures would allow for improved estimation of PA workforce size, although timescales are not currently clear. With these new or improved sources in place, we would be able to replicate the approach taken by Skills for Care in England to estimate the number of PAs in Scotland. This is discussed in more detail in the Future Work section. Once there is clarity on timelines for data improvement, responsibility for analysis of improved data can be established.

Other national sources of workforce data such as the Scottish Census or data from HMRC cannot be used to determine the size of the PA workforce, because they do not distinguish between PAs employed in the context of social care, and PAs employed for other, non- social care related purposes.

Visualisation of current source of PA workforce data.

Data Sources

The current PA data landscape is highly fragmented and incomplete. It is composed of both regular data collections, and standalone data sets, both of which have their own gaps.

Regular data sources

Provide regular data on the size and composition of the PA workforce, however known to be incomplete in many ways.

PHS Insights in Social Care Dashboards

What’s included: number of people in Scotland receiving direct payments as part of their care package (SDS option 1) based on data returns from HSCPs/LAs. Number of Personal Assistance contracts known to local authorities based on data returns from HSCPs.

What’s missing: there are differences in recording between LAs which means that the data submitted varies. We do not know based on this data how many SDS option 1 recipients employ PAs. PA contracts that are not known to LAs are not included.

SDSS PA Data Workforce Survey

What’s included: PAs who responded to the survey (912 for 2022, 798 is 2023). This included the register of PAs eligible for the £500 Thank You Payment and other distribution methods such as social media.

What’s missing: For 2022, PAs who were not eligible for the payment and/or did not apply so would not be sampled. PAs who were sampled did not respond to the survey.

Standalone data sources

Provide snapshot in time of PA workforce, each data source also has known gaps.

Scotland Excel £500 Thank you payment record

What’s included: 4,799 PAs deemed eligible for pandemic thank you payment.

What’s missing: any element of the PA workforce that did not apply and/or in any way did not meet the eligibility requirements for Thank You payment.

Scottish Government 2010 commissioned report on PA workforce

What’s included: PAs surveyed who were sampled via support service providers across Scotland, including local authorities, mainstream voluntary organisations and specialist voluntary organisations.

What’s missing: any PAs who were not already in contact with support organisations / otherwise known to these organisations at the time of study. Any PAs who did not respond to the survey.

ILFS notification on number of ILF receipients in Scotland who are PA employers in 2021/22

What’s included: PA employers who were in receipt of the Independent Living Fund at the time of the notification in 2021/22.

What’s missing: Any PA employers who do not receive ILF payments, and/or were not captured by specific timeframe.