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

Method of estimation

Our intention is to replicate the work carried out by Skills for Care in England on estimating the size of the PA workforce. To estimate the number of PAs, Skills for Care (SfC) first estimate the number of PA employers in England by using NHS England’s Short- and Long-Term Support (SALT) return to obtain the number of direct payment recipients. SfC then use data from the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS) Spring Survey to estimate the percentage of direct payment recipients who employ PAs, which was 32% in 2022/23.

The number of PA employers is then multiplied by the average number of PAs they employ in order to estimate the number of filled PA posts. This is then divided by the average number of employers a PA works for to estimate the total number of PAs. The calculation can be summarised using the steps below.

Calculation to estimate number of PAs

1. Number of direct payment recipients x proportion who employ PAs = Number of PA employers

2. Number of PA employers x number of PAs they employ = Number of filled posts

3. Number of filled posts / Average number of employers PAs work for = Number of PAs

Some of the information required to replicate this approach is already available from existing sources.

• Number of direct payment recipients - the Insights in Social Care publication produced by Public Health Scotland (PHS) includes the number of direct payment recipients. However, variation across areas in what data is recorded and submitted means that this data is not always available and is known not to be robust. Further work with PHS is required to better understand this data.
• Average number of employers PAs work for - this can be obtained from Self Directed Support Scotland’s (SDSS) annual PA Survey.

However, more work is needed to obtain the proportion of direct payment recipients who employ PAs and the average number of PAs an employer employs.