Published on September 14th 2022 by Katie Thorn

Skills for Care updates ASC-WDS to provide greater insights for social care sector

Skills for Care and the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) have added questions to the Adult Social Care Workforce Data Set (ASC-WDS) to continue to provide greater insights into the adult social care sector and workforce.

ASC-WDS is a service which allows providers to store their workforce and training records, access funding for training and benchmark their workplace. Skills for Care uses the data from ASC-WDS to produce key sector insights and reports. These insights are used by Government and other stakeholders to aid with understanding and policy making for the sector.

Skills for Care has updated the service to ask users additional questions which will help DHSC to monitor the impact of the initiatives proposed in the Government’s social care reform white paper.

Skills for Care has worked very closely with DHSC’s economists and care providers during the development of these questions to ensure they meet the needs for producing intelligence and are simple for care providers to answer.

Oonagh Smyth, CEO of Skills for Care says:

“The Government’s White Paper reforms have the potential to lead to real change for social care by building important foundations for career pathways and development.  

“We will continue to support these changes including making sure that we can measure the impact the initiatives are having on the workforce. Our new updates will be key in allowing us to do this.”

The additional questions which have been added to ASC-WDS are:

• How much money have you spent on advertising for staff in the last four weeks?
• How many people have you interviewed for care worker roles in the last four weeks?
• Do new care workers have to repeat training they’ve done with previous employers?
• Would you accept a Care Certificate from a worker’s previous employer?
• Do you pay care workers a cash loyalty bonus within their first two years of employment?
• Do you pay your care workers more than statutory ‘sick pay’ if they cannot work because of illness?
• Do you contribute more than the minimum 3% into workplace pensions for your care workers?
• How many days leave do your full-time care workers get each year?

 

 

Photo by Emily Morter on Unsplash

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