• Surveys conducted on behalf of the NI Social Care Council indicate that most independent social care employers are not real Living Wage (RLW) employers.
  • A report published by the department this week indicates that 73% of independent domiciliary care employers and 88% of independent social care employers report that they do not pay the RLW.
  • The claim here was made by Health Minister Mike Nesbitt during a meeting with the Health Committee. In that meeting, Mr Nesbitt also suggested that the “majority of staff in the sector” do receive the RLW.
  • Evidence from the surveys indicate this was true at the time, with 54% of respondents saying they received this amount or more. However, the RLW has since increased and there is no guarantee this still holds.
  • The Health Minister himself has suggested the findings in this report should be treated with some caution due to low response rates. This is a fair point. However the information in these surveys is currently the best available data about pay in NI’s independent care sector.
  • The social care sector struggles to recruit and retain staff, with low pay one of the contributors to this problem.

In a meeting of the NI Assembly Health Committee on 20 November 2025, Health Minister Mike Nesbitt, in response to a question about the real Living Wage (RLW) for social care workers in the independent sector, claimed:

“[It] has just emerged at my level that the majority of employers — 70% — already pay the real Living Wage, or possibly more.”

This assertion is not supported by evidence.

Instead, surveys commissioned by the Social Care Fair Work Forum indicates that most employers, including 73% of domiciliary care respondents and 88% of social care respondents, report they do not pay the real Living Wage.

During the same committee meeting, Mr Nesbitt also claimed that:

“The majority of staff in the sector, who are employed not by us but by care homes, are already earning on or above the real Living Wage.”

There is evidence to suggest that this is true. In total, 54% of employees who responded to the survey reported that they were paid equal to, or greater than, the real living wage at the 2023 rate of £12.

However, the real Living Wage has since increased to £13.45 and there is no guarantee that most employees in the sector are currently paid the real Living Wage. Nevertheless, based on the best available evidence this was the case when the surveys were conducted.

The Health Minister himself has said that the findings from this report should be treated with some caution, given low response rates to the relevant surveys. This is a fair point. However, the report still provides the best available evidence on fair pay in the sector.

For more details, read on.

  • Source

FactCheckNI engaged extensively with the Health Minister and the Department of Health (DoH) on this issue. On 2 December, the DoH press office sent us the following comments from the Health Minister:

“Last week, I had a useful meeting with representatives of the independent social care sector. That meeting was constructive and explanatory in nature and I was grateful for the opportunity to listen to their concerns and also to reaffirm my commitment to funding the Real Living Wage (RLW) at the earliest affordable opportunity. This will be a priority for me in the planning of our expenditure for the financial year 2026/27.

“I have asked my officials to take forward a number of pieces of work that were discussed at the meeting, and I now intend to provide a written response to the Health Committee. I also intend to publish the supporting evidence that was provided to inform the work of the Social Care Fair Work Forum.”

On 5 January this year, FactCheckNI submitted a Freedom of Information request requesting more information, including details about that “supporting evidence” informing the work of the Social Care Fair Work Forum. At the time of writing, these questions have yet to receive an answer.

However, on 9 February this year, the Department of Health (DoH) published the final report from the Social Care Fair Work Forum’s research into the real Living Wage (the RLW report). This has allowed us to satisfactorily complete this fact check. The report itself states that:

“Most employers (73% of domiciliary care respondents and 88% of social care respondents) reported they do not pay the Real Living Wage.”

The Social Care Fair Work Forum – which includes include representatives from HSC bodies, social care employers, trade unions and other key stakeholders – carried out this research with help from the Northern Ireland Social Care Council (NISCC), which is a non-departmental public body sponsored by DoH, and whose chair is accountable to the Health Minister.

More details of this, and other relevant findings, from the report are laid out below. First, however, it’s worth learning a little about the context of pay and conditions for social care workers.

  • Background

The struggle to recruit and retain staff within social care is a significant issue within the sector.

In June 2022, the NI Executive introduced a new public procurement policy requiring that staff working on government contracts should be paid the real Living Wage (RLW). However, this was not automatically extended to employees in the independent sector.

In July 2025, DoH published a a Health and Social Care NI Reset Plan, which included a formal and funded commitment to paying care workers in the independent sector the RLW, stating that:

“[In] 2025/26, we will commit to an investment of an additional £25m in the independent social care sector to support the introduction of the Real Living Wage, building on the additional £70m that was invested in 2024/25.”

On 6 November 2025, Mike Nesbitt, Minister for Health, announced a backdated pay offer for healthcare workers including doctors, nurses and auxiliary staff to ensure parity with their peers across the UK. 

Despite the earlier commitment in the Health and Social Care NI Reset Plan, this offer did not apply to care workers in the independent sector.

In a statement on 14 November 2025, the Minister said that he remained committed to paying the RLW to independent sector workers “at the earliest affordable opportunity.”

  • Real Living Wage

The national minimum wage in the UK for people over the age of 21, from April 2026, will be £12.71 per hour, up from £12.21 in 2025-26. This is the legal minimum businesses are required to pay by law.

The real Living Wage (RLW) is a higher, voluntary rate that estimates the real cost of living, taking into account essentials like housing, food, travel as well as small discretionary expenses that allow for a decent standard of living.

The Resolution Foundation calculates the real cost of living for the Living Wage Foundation. It set an RLW for 2025/26 at £13.45 per hour (£14.80 in London), which is voluntarily paid by over 16,000 UK businesses.

  • Social care workforce in Northern Ireland

The social care workforce in Northern Ireland provides care to people with needs arising from disability, illness and other life situations in a variety of settings, for example people’s own homes, residential and nursing homes, day care centres and in the community.

Domiciliary workers are not included in HSC workforce statistics. However, Independent Health and Care Providers (IHCP), the representative body for the independent care sector in NI, states that the independent sector in NI employs over 34,000 people.

This is backed up by information recorded in the newly-published RLW report, which notes that the NISCC Live Register recorded a total of 41,825 registered social care workers in NI as of June 2025. Of these, 78% worked in the independent sector and  21% in the public sector (with the remainder in transition between roles or uncategorised).

Some parts of the sector are even more heavily dependent on the independent providers. For example, independent providers are responsible for 93% of all registered care home beds.

A 2025 Report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation explains that commissioning within NI’s social care system places strong emphasis on cost efficiency, which means that independent providers must stay competitive to be awarded contracts. This report cites research from 2017 which describes the impact of this as ‘minimum-waged social care’ and ‘financially fragile providers’. These, in turn, lead to problems with the recruitment and retention of staff.

  • The claim

To recap, in a 20 November Health Committee meeting (transcript here, video here) discussing the employment circumstances  Health Minister Mike Nesbitt said:

“[It] has just emerged at my level that the majority of employers — 70% — already pay the real living wage, or possibly more.”

Earlier in the meeting, he said:

“[Probably] the toughest decision that I have made in 18 months was to go back on my promise to introduce the real living wage for social care workers on 1 September. I ask the Committee to accept that that is a sign of just how desperate the finances are and how big the gap is between what we have and what we need.

“Since I made that announcement, officials have told me — we know this from monitoring and surveying — that the majority of staff in the sector, who are employed not by us but by care homes, are already earning on or above the real living wage.”

These statements comprise two slightly different claims. Firstly, that a majority of employers within the independent care sector – 70% or more – pay the RLW to all their staff. Secondly, that the majority of employees within the sector earn the RLW or more.

  • RLW report

The Report was commissioned by the DoH’s Social Care Fair Work Forum and carried out by the Ulster University Economic Policy Centre, supported by Morrow Gilchrest Associates. A central priority of the Report was to progress recommendations from 2017 report Power to People that social care should be a RLW sector.

As part of their research, the RLW Justification Report team conducted surveys from 2023 to 2025, with both employees and employers in the independent social care sector.

Employees:

A total of 1,313 social care workers responded to the survey (which was only a 4.47% response rate, but still a good sized sample).

  • 54% of respondents reported that they were paid equal to, or greater than, the real living wage at the 2023 rate of £12.
  • The RLW Justification Report notes that it cannot be assumed that the 54% figure would hold for the 2024 RLW rate of £12.60 introduced after the survey. Thus this 54% may not hold for the £13.45 RLW rate today.
  • 70% of survey respondents had considered leaving their current job in the last year, and 65% had considered leaving the sector completely.
  • 51% of respondents said they were worse off financially compared to 12 months ago, 48% had borrowed money to pay essential bills like light and heat, and 16% have relied on foodbanks/charities for support.

Employers:

The RLW Justification Report team also carried out two surveys of employers in the independent care sector between 2 December 2024 – 16 January 2025. The first survey was for domiciliary care providers and the second for all other social care providers. 

In total 22 responses were received from independent domiciliary care providers, representing 18% of that sector (77% of these were in the private sector and 23% in the voluntary/charitable/community sector). Meanwhile, 33 responses were received from other social care providers – such as care homes, day care, supported living organisations, children’s social care and dementia support – representing 13% of that sector.

  • Most employers – 73% of domiciliary care respondents and 88% of social care respondents – reported that they do not pay the real living wage.
  • Both surveys found that funding was the main reported barrier to paying the real living wage.
  • 68% of domiciliary care organisations and 64% of social care organisations reported recruitment pressures in-year.
  • 86% of domiciliary and 94% of social care organisations reported significant vacancy rates.

Figure 1 – Percentage of providers who pay the real living wage. Source: RLW Justification Report, p. 26. 

  • Other information

On 5 December 2026, DUP MLA Diane Dodds tabled a written question about how many independent care home staff receive the RLW, which was answered on 22 December.

The Health Minister’s reply reflected some of the information later published in the RLW Justification Report, as well as an acknowledgement that DoH does not hold data on the percentage of independent social care or care home providers paying staff the RLW. The Minister also said of the RLW report:

“These findings should be interpreted with caution due to limited response rates.

That point is reasonable, in particular when it comes to the information from employers, given that response rates were not high (18% among domiciliary care providers and 13% across the rest of independent care) and the number of responses in total was also low (22 and 33, respectively).

However, this still represents the best data available on wages within the independent sector.

Based on all the available evidence, the claim that 70% of employers within the independent care sector pay the real Living Wage is not supported by evidence.

Instead, 73% of domiciliary care respondents and 88% of social care respondents reported that they do not pay the RLW.

It is worth noting that, in the same committee meeting in which he made this claim, Mr Nesbitt also stated that “the majority of staff in the sector, who are employed not by us but by care homes, are already earning on or above the real living wage.”

There is evidence to suggest this might be true, given that 54% of respondents reported that they were paid equal to, or greater than, the real living wage at the 2023 rate of £12. However the current RLW is £13.45 and there is no guarantee that most employees are currently paid at or above that rate at this moment.

  • Further context on pay

On 27 January 2026, IHCP CEO Pauline Shepherd and three colleagues gave evidence at a meeting of the Health Committee. She stated that:

“We haven’t had any assurance. [The Health Minister has] indicated that he’s committed to paying the real living wage when it’s affordable […] so we’re still in the same situation.”

She indicated that discussions between DoH and IHCP have been “paused”.

Also giving evidence at the committee, Ryan Williams from Connected Health underlined the impact of current pay levels, saying:

“[It] is having a seismic impact on attrition within the sector. So we are in real time disassembling the capacity we do have, with people leaving care.”