Introduction

Background to the statistics

1.1 Skills for Care is a charitable organisation providing freely accessible statistics on adult social care for the benefit of the public. Skills for Care asked the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) to assess its statistics on the workforce employed by adult social services departments in England against the Code of Practice for Statistics (the Code). After taking over the publication of these official statistics from NHS Digital (now NHS England) in 2021, Skills for Care was named as an official statistics producer in the Official Statistics Order 2023 and is demonstrating its commitment to produce statistics that meet the standards required of accredited official statistics. 

1.2 The statistics being assessed include information on staff employed (directly and indirectly) by local authorities in England. Specifically, data are submitted to the Adult Social Care Workforce Data Set by local authorities who provide adult social care services to members of the public. The latest official statistics relate to workers in post as of September 2023. Data are published at various geographic levels covering the workforce size and selected characteristics, such as: 

• gender 

• age 

• turnover rates and starter rates 

• vacancy rates 

• mean number of sickness days 

• care workers’ pay 

1.3 The users we spoke to widely valued the statistics. Local government and NHS bodies use them to understand the composition and trends of the adult social care workforce at both local and national levels. Central government bodies use the data to monitor recruitment policy, for example, the employment of staff from other countries. The data are used to benchmark local authorities, to perform workforce projections and for planning by central government, local government, NHS commissioners and service providers. Organisations like think tanks and lobby organisation also use the statistics to perform research and answer media queries. 

1.4 The statistics are published in a variety of formats, including an annual pdf report, data tables and a downloadable PowerPoint. These publications include several different charts, diagrams and tables to help users to visualise the data. 

Adult social care statistics in England

1.5 Statistics on the workforce employed by adult social services departments in England are part of the wider statistics on the adult social care sector in England. In early 2020, OSR published the Report on Adult Social Care Statistics in England. In this report, we note that adult social care is a major public policy area being developed in the absence of adequate statistics, provided free of charge. We consider that the most impactful long-term solution to improve the coverage and quality of social care statistics would be a transformation of the social care data collection and analysis systems. Modernising data collection systems provides the opportunity to reduce the burden on data suppliers, speeding up data processing for secondary uses and the publication of statistics. 

1.6 Since 2006, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) has commissioned Skills for Care to collect and publish data on adult social care providers and their workforces. This data collection is called the Adult Social Care Workforce Data Set (WDS). Skills for Care publishes several statistical reports and analyses using data from the WDS. In 2021, Skills for Care took over responsibility for publishing official statistics on the workforce employed by adult social services departments in England from NHS Digital (now NHS England).  

1.7 Other statistical publications by Skills for Care include its comprehensive report, The state of the adult social care sector and workforce in England, which provides information about independent providers, as well as the local authority sector. While not the subject of this assessment, Skills for Care notes that the independent provider sector’s overall participation rate in the WDS is low at around 50%, which could indicate problems with the mechanisms for collecting adult social care workforce data for secondary use.  

1.8 Since multiple organisations are involved in collecting and processing data in the adult social care sector in England, individual organisations need to work together to improve statistics on adult social care. To assist this effort, Skills for Care’s Lead Official sits on DHSC’s Provider Data Advisory Group. This collaboration enables Skills for Care to work with other organisations in the sector in England, such as the Care Quality Commission and DHSC, who are trying to find a way forward to improve data collection across the sector. 

Next steps

1.9 We have identified three requirements that Skills for Care needs to address for its statistics on the workforce employed by adult social services departments in England to become accredited official statistics. Skills for Care intends to meet these requirements by February 2025, when the next release will be published. 

List of Requirements