This request relates solely to information held by the council in its role as a commissioner of domiciliary (home) care services. It does not seek confirmation of statutory enforcement responsibility under minimum wage legislation.

1. Please provide recorded information held by the council, created or relied upon within the last three financial years, which demonstrates how the council assures itself, in practice, that commissioned domiciliary care providers pay care workers for all working time.

For the purposes of this request, “all working time” includes (but is not limited to):
• Payment for direct contact time with service users
• Payment for travel time between care visits
• Payment for gaps of less than 60 minutes between care visits
• Payment for mileage, including whether contracts specify a mileage rate or reimbursement requirement

This may include, but is not limited to:
• Contractual clauses or schedules relating to pay, working time, or reimbursement of expenses
• Monitoring, auditing, or compliance reports
• Payroll sampling, spot checks, or verification exercises (redacted as necessary)
• Records of breaches, enforcement actions, or improvement plans
• Provider declarations or self-certifications relied upon as evidence
• Records showing that compliance is assured through reliance on HMRC enforcement or other external bodies
• Any other documentation used by the council to verify compliance in practice This request does not seek policy statements or general explanations.
It seeks recorded information held by the council.

Clarification
If the council does not hold recorded information for any of the above elements, please explicitly confirm this and state whether:
a) The council does not monitor these matters in practice;
b) Monitoring occurs, but no records are retained;
c) The council relies solely on provider declarations or contractual self-certification; or
d) The council relies on HMRC or another external enforcement body and holds no direct verification records.

Monitoring occurs, but records are either not retained or cannot be shared;
the council requires providers to report their visiting activity on a monthly basis as part of the contract information schedule and invoicing processes. The council reserves the right to collect additional information from providers to assure the validity of the reported data. These records would not be kept longer than needed and cannot be shared as they contain sensitive information.

The council reserves the contractual right to request documentation such as staff rotas, to ensure safe and appropriate deployment of staff. Such documentation is attributable to individual providers and may on occasion include personal details of individual staff, and are therefore commercially sensitive and confidential. Contractual action with any provider is held but considered a commercially sensitive process and it is therefore not possible to share this information.

The Councils graduated rates for services recognise the cost of travel time and expenses but we do not allow specific amounts for these items.

The new rates from April 26 start at £21.67 for accommodation based supported living (no travel required) up to £25.65 for rural home care (travel expected).

Our home care contract schedule states that providers are responsible for all costs that are incurred by the staff to deliver the service, this includes but is not limited to mileage, travel time, any uniforms, DBS, and provision of PPE.