Real Living Wage for social care workers: process evaluation (summary)

The Welsh Government commissioned Cordis Bright to conduct an independent evaluation of its policy commitment to paying social care workers in Wales the Real Living Wage (RLW). This evaluation includes the development of a Theory of Change, a process evaluation, and an impact evaluation.

This report summarises findings from the process evaluation of the RLW policy, assessing its implementation, effectiveness, early impact, and providing conclusions and recommendations for future improvements.

The RLW is an hourly pay rate determined by the Living Wage Commission. It is different from the National Minimum Wage (NLW), the British Government-mandated minimum wage for 21-year-olds and over, and exists to better reflect the cost of living.

Paying social care workers the RLW was a key commitment in the Programme for Government 2021-26. It is also in response to a widely recognised need to pay social care workers better and fits into a wider policy agenda in Wales that is concerned with fair work.

The Welsh Government pledged to provide the additional financial resources needed to ensure all social care workers receive at least the RLW from April 2022 onwards, with this additional funding commitment intended to cover the difference between the NLW and RLW. The funding also included a contribution towards the cost of maintaining salary differentials between social care workers and social care managers.

The policy applies to all registered social care workers in care homes and domiciliary care across both adult and children's services, and registered domiciliary care workers in supported living settings. The policy also applies to all personal assistants funded through local authority direct payments.

The aim of the process evaluation was to review how the RLW policy has been implemented, the effectiveness of the implementation of the RLW, and identify factors that have helped or hindered its effectiveness, as well as possible unintended consequences (positive or negative).

The objectives of the process evaluation were to:

• assess the effectiveness of the RLW policy in reaching different types of eligible social care workers
• consider the consistency of the policy’s delivery mechanisms across local authorities (LAs) and health boards (HBs)
• identify areas of good practice
• identify unintended consequences of the policy
• recommend improvements for the management and implementation of the RLW

The process evaluation examined the policy’s implementation during the first year of the policy, April 2022 to March 2023, and from the second year into the third year of the policy from April 2023 to June 2024, when data collection for this evaluation ended.

The process evaluation data was collected between February and June 2024, and involved a mixed methods approach with a wide representation of key stakeholder groups in the social care sector from across Wales, including:

• interviews with 11 national strategic stakeholders; main areas for discussion included progress of the implementation of the policy so far, including how effective progress has been, and any factors that have enabled or inhibited progress
• four regional workshops with 21 care commissioners from local authorities and health boards; main areas for discussion included how the policy is being implemented, and what are the expected impacts and unexpected consequences for social care workers and the wider system
• four regional workshops with representatives from 19 care providers; main areas for discussion included how the costs of the policy were identified and calculated, the funding for the policy, changes organisations have had to make and the effect of the policy
• an online survey with direct payment recipients, who use their payment to fund a personal assistant; main question topics included awareness of the policy, what their personal assistant was paid and if this had been increased due to the policy, and what effect the policy has had
• implementation data and documentation, including data from monitoring forms and data extracted from job advertisements. 

The qualitative evidence captured through interviews and workshops with stakeholders was analysed thematically to identify key themes, commonalities, and divergences in responses. Data collected via the direct payment recipient survey was analysed in Excel. Open text responses were analysed thematically. Data collected from the job advert data was also analysed in Excel.

Implementation of the Real Living Wage policy

The RLW policy was broadly implemented as planned by the Welsh Government, commissioners, and providers. The rollout of the policy aligned with the policy’s Theory of Change, with most stakeholders demonstrating a shared understanding of its implementation.

The majority of funding for the RLW is very likely to have reached the target group of social care workers as intended.

Effectiveness of the implementation of the policy

Based on the commissioner and providers’ insights and a review of job advertisements, the majority of eligible social care worker are likely to now be paid a Real Living Wage. To this end, the policy has largely been rolled out successfully.

A proportion of social care workers and personal assistants continue to be paid below the RLW. It is also unclear whether this policy has had an impact on social care workers in services which do not receive public funds, such as private home care workers, or workers in entirely privately funded care homes.

It is not known how many additional social care workers receive higher payments than before the policy was rolled out, because it was not clear how many social care workers were paid RLW before the policy was introduced. There is also a lack of precise data available about the payment of RLW to individuals.

There were a mix of facilitators and inhibitors to implementation of the policy. The quality of relationships between providers and commissioners were the most important facilitator, whereas insufficient funding to cover the wider non-RLW costs of care was perceived as the greatest obstacle.

Stakeholders who were concerned that there is insufficient funding for social care also highlighted that funding for the RLW is not ring-fenced. As a result, there is a risk that this funding may be spent on other priorities by local authorities and/or social care providers. There is not a direct audit trail about how funds intended to pay for the RLW have been allocated.

Early impacts and unexpected consequences

There is some emerging evidence to suggest positive impacts on social care workers, including increased pay, and improved satisfaction and morale, as the policy intended.

However, stakeholders were more cautious about the extent of impact on the wider care sector in terms of recruiting or retaining the best staff, despite some positive examples of potential progress in these areas.

As part of the next phase of this evaluation, an impact evaluation will be conducted looking at the impact of paying the RLW to social care workers in Wales. This will explore in further detail the early impacts and unintended consequences of the policy, including through consultation with registered social care workers and personal assistants who have not yet been consulted.

These findings should be considered interim and treated with additional caution. An impact evaluation for the RLW policy will be conducted from the Autumn of 2024, with the report expected by Summer 2025.

The report produced four recommendations intended to improve the management and implementation of the RLW for social care workers in Wales.

The improvements and actions set out below are based on stakeholders’ views and suggestions and our analysis and interpretation of them.

It is not expected that everyone will agree with all the improvement suggestions, but the proposed actions are intended to support the most effective implementation of the RLW for social care workers to achieve the policies’ intended aims.

These recommendations will require the input of all stakeholders, including Welsh Government, local authorities and NHS health boards, and providers to be achieved successfully.

The recommendations

Consider how you communicate the timing of the RLW uplifts to give people confidence about when a pay rise will come and what it will be. Communications about the timing of the RLW uplift could be enhanced to clearly convey that the new RLW rate will be implemented from the following April. If it were possible to make provisions for a mid-year pay rise at the time the latest RLW rate is announced, this would likely help to help maintain goodwill amongst the workforce and prevent the temptation for care workers to move to employers that have the ability to pay the uplift more quickly than the care sector on wages. Where this is not possible, additional focus on communicating the timeline for uplifts will be important.

Consider the feasibility of ring-fencing funding to pay the RLW and associated on-costs, to improve transparency and accountability.If this is not feasible, Welsh Government could be more explicit with local authorities as to what funding is intended for the RLW within the non-hypothecated Revenue Support Grant (RSG). There is likely an administrative burden and transaction costs to ring-fencing funding. However, it may be the most effective means to ensure that funding intended for paying RLW is used for this. If ring-fencing is not feasible, particularly with the current funding mechanisms, then consider explaining specifically what funds each local authority has received that is intended for the RLW within the RSG, to better direct them to use the funding as intended. We acknowledge that this will still be open to providers and local authorities making different choices.

Review the means of monitoring the implementation of RLW policy, including using existing workforce data collections to monitor both actual pay levels and people’s experiences of their pay. It cannot currently be said with certainty how many eligible social care workers are being paid the RLW. Further consideration of how workforce pay is collected would aid in monitoring this policy’s implementation on an on-going basis.

Increase transparency and communication around the calculation of the funding for the RLW policy and what it includes. Greater transparency and clearer communication about how this figure has been reached would give providers a clearer understanding about what the funding is for (i.e. the gap between NLW and RLW and differentials). It will also make it easier for policy makers, commissioners, and providers to identify if funding is sufficient and understand what providers should be contributing themselves.

In addition to these recommendations, policy makers are invited to consider more widely the risks associated with the commitment to pay the RLW, when the Welsh Government does not possess the means to control the costs of the policy.

There is a risk that, should the Welsh Government, commissioners or providers consider that the RLW becomes unaffordable, expectations have been raised across the workforce and any move to pay less than the RLW could undermine the intended outcomes of the policy.

The risk of the policy being perceived as unaffordable is particularly acute due to a combination of high inflation and funding scarcity. This evaluation has already identified organisations that are considering whether the RLW is affordable or not.

Further exploration of the impacts and unexpected consequences for privately funded care will be explored as part of the impact evaluation that Cordis Bright will be conducting from the Autumn of 2024, with the report being available from Summer 2025.

Report Authors: Dr Lucy Webster, Joshua Butt, Stella Butler, Tom Noon, and Colin Horswell (Cordis Bright)

Views expressed in this report are those of the researchers and not necessarily those of the Welsh Government

For further information please contact:
Analysis and Innovation Team
National Office for Care and Support
Welsh Government
Cathays Park
Cardiff
CF10 3NQ

Email: AnalysisAndInnovationTeam@gov.wales

Social research number: 102/2025
Digital ISBN: 978-1-80633-526-8

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