A new compliance scheme for social care providers has been launched to ensure workers are paid what they are owed, while also maintaining care services.
The Social Care Compliance Scheme (SCCS) is aimed at those providers that may have incorrectly paid workers below the national minimum wage for sleep-in shifts. The opt-in scheme allows providers up to one year to identify what they owe to workers, supported by advice from HMRC. Employers that identify arrears at the end of the review period will have up to three months to pay workers what they are owed.
The introduction of SCCS follows an announcement in August that HMRC would waive historic financial penalties owed by social care employers that have underpaid their workers for overnight sleep-in shifts. This was in response to concerns about the impact financial penalties and arrears of wages could have on the sector.
HMRC is due to write to social care employers that currently have a complaint against them of allegedly underpaying minimum wage rates for sleep-in shifts to encourage them to join the scheme. Those that do not opt-in to SCCS will be subject to HMRC’s normal enforcement procedures.
Enforcement action for sleep-in shifts was temporarily suspended in the social care sector between 26 July and 1 November 2017.
The latest guidance on sleep-in shifts can be found here.
