The Fair Pay Agreement process in adult social care: consultation

In late 2025, the government published its consultation on the process for negotiating a new Fair Pay Agreement for adult social care. This consultation set out how the process for deciding a new agreement could work and asked for feedback on this process.  

This consultation closed on 16 January 2026. The NHF has submitted a response on behalf of our members and published a briefing explaining how the proposals could affect housing associations who provide care and support.  

What was included in this consultation? 

This consultation proposed the process for deciding what the new Fair Pay Agreement and the Adult Social Care Negotiating Body will look like.  

Parts of the consultation will affect our members who provide care and support to residents, including:  

• Who will be part of the Adult Social Care Negotiating Body. This would bring together unions and employer representatives to agree on national standards. 
• What the negotiation process could look like. The consultation sets out what the stages of the negotiation process will look like, as well as timelines.  
• The potential coverage and remit of the Fair Pay Agreement. The consultation is looking for views on which job roles should be in scope and whether wider employment policies should be in scope as well as pay. 
• Dispute resolution. This includes what is classed as a dispute, how the resolution process is set in motion, and who should be involved. 
  Implementation, compliance, and enforcement. The consultation asks what the sector will need to implement the changes and what will happen if an organisation doesn’t comply. 

We encouraged our members to respond to the consultation individually and shared a briefing with members with some questions to help inform our policy position. We have also submitted a response on behalf of the sector.   

What did we say in our submission? 

• We support the establishment of the Adult Social Care Negotiating Body, noting it should have a clearly defined remit and well-resourced secretariat. 
• We urged the government to include support workers within the coverage of the Negotiating Body and provide further clarity on this. Failure to include support workers could risk a recruitment crisis and the creation of a two-tier sector. However, their inclusion must take into account the extremely challenging financial situation and commissioning environment facing supported housing providers and be accompanied with adequate and sustained contract uplifts. 
• We support the proposal for the Care Provider Alliance to convene employers and coordinate participation but need further clarity on whether our supported housing members will be represented. Whether members are represented by the NHF or other means will need to be decided through further consultation. 
• Self-funders will need to be considered carefully through impact assessments to understand whether increased costs through the Fair Pay Agreement will be affordable. 
• We are calling for a 12-month implementation period instead of the proposed 6-month period, to account for factors such as commissioning cycles, practical payroll/budgeting timelines and the wider impacts of implementing other national reforms at the same time. 
• We said that pay should be the initial focus of the Fair Pay Agreement, with wider terms, training and people policies remaining out of scope to avoid duplication with existing regulatory frameworks such as the Competence & Conduct Standard. 
• We also said that implementation and compliance will require clear guidance to be co-authored by the Department of Health and Social Care and the Negotiating Body, alignment with other regulatory regimes and provision of sufficient financial settlements to meet all increased costs.