care agency

Any chance of contacting the  better ones who told you they  were leaving the agency,  and emplowing direct, or asking them to be self employed service providers?

Naturally you can't  poach when they  have a contract with their  employer,  but that cannot tie them forever, especially when the agency is out of business or they have left due to it breaking  terms of their employment contract.

I heard of a scheme working well. A group of care nurses form a self governing self employed support  agency. They agree together  the best way to make their group of customers happy, at the same time as depending on the rest of the group to work as a united team, so, for instance,  they cover each other for holidays and  emergencies  

They found that  their own professional satisfaction was high, the customers were delighted, and the flexibility of working as a team and being their own bosses meant their costs were lower.  No more rushing from a person who needed extra time on a particular day.  No absurd racing long distances and no not getting paid for travel. No inflexible shifts.

I'm suspicious of your s.s. being able lawfully to ban you from hiring self employed.   If they are equating self employment  with tax fraud, they are on thin ice.

Admittedly the group care  teams are technically independent care agencies, just a very small ones.  They can match the bad inefficient agencies in bidding for care contracts.  As far as I know, the local authority  cannot ban service providers whose workers are self employed,  any more than they could ban them using red haired staff!

 The advantage of self employment for staff and for service users is that they can agree between the team if one wants to work less hours one day, or if one wants to work as many hours as possible to build up savings, for instance. Everyone wins, and the cost is lower while the service is unreconisably better.