It’s time to rethink No Recourse to Public Funds

A sustainable social care workforce is yet another worthy and popular government objective being held back by this policy

Social care is ‘an issue successive governments have failed to address’. But the Queen’s Speech reaffirmed the Health Secretary’s promise that there’ll be ‘no more kicking the can down the road’. The government recognises a crucial starting point is tackling the workforce’s major recruitment and retention challenges.

Migrant workers are an important part of this. They’ve provided labour essential to preventing the sector buckling, and they’re at the heart of the government’s latest recruitment drive. But the ‘No Recourse to Public Funds’ (NRPF) policy risks compromising recruitment and retention of these essential workers, by denying access to the welfare safety net they pay into.

At Citizens Advice, it’s a pattern we’ve noticed playing out again and again with NRPF, a policy that affects 1.4 million people building their lives in the UK. The policy’s reach means it encroaches on — and hinders — wide-ranging and worthy government objectives: equality of opportunity for children, support with rising living costs, and a sustainable social care workforce.

Social care already depends on migrant workers — and the government is seeking more support from overseas

Non-EU migrant workers make up 1 in 10 (9%) of social care staff: 137,000 workers crucial to propping up a sector buckling under 105,000 vacancies.

Most existing workers here on visas are on family and dependant visas — a route likely to remain ‘an important source of labour’ for social care.

The government’s latest care staff recruitment drive also creates a new route to the UK. Care workers joined the Shortage Occupation List in February, with a minimum salary of just £20,480. The Home Secretary claims this health and care visa extension ‘will bolster the workforce’, ‘by making it easier for health professionals to live and work in the UK.’

But new overseas recruits and many existing non-EU migrant workers will be subject to NRPF, a policy that blocks access to the welfare system. Especially as living costs soar, NRPF will make life in the UK hard, if not impossible, for these workers.

The NRPF policy hinders government ambitions for the social care workforce

The above scenarios outline the NRPF policy’s monthly income hit for two typical care workers, amounting to over £500 and £1,000, respectively.

This policy is unfair: care workers can’t access welfare support they pay into and the system otherwise recognises they’re entitled to. And it’s illogical. The government sees the invaluable labour migrant workers offer the fragile care sector. But the NRPF policy compromises retention and undercuts recruitment incentives like reduced visa fees, by leaving workers with:

• Lower take-home incomes than colleagues on the same salary: As the examples above illustrate. The Migration Advisory Committee indicates pay below £20,480 without welfare ‘could push [care workers] well below levels required to live in the UK’.
• No welfare to help reduce barriers to work in the sector: For example, support with childcare costs, which is particularly important for an 82% women workforce. Or housing costs to live where you work e.g. London, where vacancies and living costs exceed average.
• No welfare safety net in crises: NRPF emergency schemes are no substitute. They’re only available after considerable harm has already occurred, restricted by visa type and circumstances — for example, a care worker on the health and care visa, who has no children and experiences abuse by a partner she’s financially reliant on, couldn’t access any state support.

“I would say [my job is] stable because it’s a shortage occupation… but it’s just that I wish, obviously, my salary could actually be enough to take care of myself and kids”

Mary, Nurse on health and care visa

These realities of the NRPF policy could deter potential recruits, and exacerbate sector retention challenges. Challenges arising from low pay, unsociable working hours, and high sick leave rates. From our research, we know these conditions intersect the NRPF policy’s impacts on household budgets, families, and wellbeing.

For example, 83% of people with NRPF say the policy negatively impacts their mental health. This is an added, unsustainable pressure on workers in a social care sector with 2.5 times the average sick leave rate and 29% turnover.

It’s time to rethink the NRPF policy

The NRPF policy is another burden social care workers simply can’t afford — and a government-made hindrance to its ambitions for the sector. It seems unlikely this is what the government imagined for a policy the Home Office claims is grounded in principles of fairness and contribution.

In other examples of the NRPF policy’s unintended consequences, the government has made piecemeal interventions. For example, on free school meals and the Energy Rebate. These were welcome, but the actual and risked harm before implementing exceptions was substantial.

How many more exceptions must the government recognise before they reconsider the rule? It’s time to rethink the NRPF policy.