Who Governs JCC?
A transparent look at our role, responsibilities and limits This is article five in our Know Who You’re Connecting With series. And this one is about us. We have spent the previous articles encouraging carers and families to ask questions. Who is this business?
A transparent look at our role, responsibilities and limits
This is article five in our Know Who You’re Connecting With series.
And this one is about us.
We have spent the previous articles encouraging carers and families to ask questions.
Who is this business?
What does it actually do?
Who regulates it?
Who is responsible if something goes wrong?
What protections exist?
So it would be rather hypocritical if, when the spotlight turned towards Just Care Community, we suddenly shuffled our feet and changed the subject.
We won’t.
If we are going to ask you to trust JCC, then you deserve to understand exactly what JCC is, what it isn’t, which laws may apply to us and — just as importantly — where our responsibility stops.
No smoke. No mirrors. No clever wording.
Here goes.
First: is JCC regulated by CQC?
JCC is not a CQC-registered care provider.
And that distinction matters.
The Care Quality Commission regulates specified health and social care activities in England. A business providing or managing the regulated activity of personal care will generally need to register unless an exemption applies.
But CQC itself makes an important distinction between a business that provides and manages care and one that simply introduces people and then steps away from directing the care.
CQC guidance says an introductory agency that has no ongoing role in the direction or control of the personal care provided does not need to register for that activity.
That distinction sits right at the heart of JCC.
JCC does not employ carers.
We do not send a carer into somebody’s home to fulfil a JCC care contract.
We do not pay carers their wages or fees.
We do not decide their rate.
We do not allocate their hours.
We do not create rotas for families.
We do not decide what personal care a person should receive.
We do not assess somebody and prescribe a care package.
We do not supervise a carer inside a client’s home.
We do not change the care being delivered.
We do not automatically arrange cover because a particular carer is unavailable.
And we do not become a party to the agreement between the carer and the family.
The carer and family find one another, talk to one another and decide whether they want to work together.
The care arrangement belongs to them.
That separation isn't an administrative technicality. It is one of the boundaries that determines what JCC actually is.
But “not regulated by CQC” does NOT mean “unregulated”
This is where the language gets confusing.
People quite reasonably hear:
“JCC isn't regulated by CQC.”
and translate that into:
“Nobody governs JCC.”
That isn't correct.
There is no single regulator sitting above JCC inspecting the quality of care in the way CQC inspects a registered care provider — because JCC isn't delivering that care.
But that most certainly does not mean we can do whatever we like.
A platform can have responsibilities under employment-agency law, data-protection law, consumer law and online-safety law without ever becoming the provider of somebody's personal care.
And this is where we have to be as willing to scrutinise ourselves as we are everybody else.
The slightly confusing bit: JCC may still be an “employment agency” in law
This is an important distinction.
Care regulation and employment-agency regulation are not the same thing.
The term employment agency under the Employment Agencies Act 1973 is much wider than most of us would assume.
Current government guidance specifically says the legislation can apply to online platforms, and that the rules can apply regardless of the employment status of the person looking for work. The definition of a work-seeker includes self-employed people and limited-company work-seekers.
So saying:
“But JCC isn't an agency.”
or:
“Our carers are self-employed.”
doesn't magically answer the legal question.
What matters is what the platform actually does.
If a business is acting as an intermediary to help somebody seeking work connect with somebody wanting to engage them, the Employment Agencies Act 1973 and the Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Businesses Regulations 2003 may apply.
Those rules are currently enforced in Great Britain by the Fair Work Agency, which began operating on 7 April 2026.
That is a regulatory boundary JCC has to take seriously.
And we will.
There is an important rule about charging carers
This deserves its own heading because it is exactly the sort of thing we believe carers should know.
Employment agencies and employment businesses are generally prohibited from charging a work-seeker a fee for finding, or trying to find, them work.
Calling the payment something else doesn't necessarily change what it is.
At the same time, businesses may charge for genuinely separate services — training, professional tools or other optional services, for example — provided those services are not made a condition of receiving work-finding services.
That means JCC has to maintain a very clear line between:
helping carers and families find one another
and
optional professional services that a carer chooses to buy from JCC.
We don't get to blur that line simply because our intentions are good.
And frankly, we wouldn't want to.
JCC was created because carers lose far too much of the value of their work to middlemen already. Building a platform intended to challenge that system while sneaking a placement fee through the back door would rather spectacularly miss the point.
And because this is care, the standard is higher
There is another reason employment-agency legislation matters here.
This isn't somebody being introduced for an office job.
Carers may be entering the homes of older people, disabled people and others who may be particularly vulnerable.
The Conduct Regulations contain additional requirements when agencies introduce people into positions involving caring for or attending vulnerable people. Those rules deal with matters including identity, suitability, experience, training, qualifications, authorisations and references.
That is important for JCC.
Because there is a huge difference between:
“This person created a profile on our website.”
and:
“We have verified this person as suitable to care for somebody vulnerable.”
Those statements are not interchangeable.
JCC should never allow a badge, profile, subscription or pretty purple tick to imply that a check has taken place when it hasn't.
Where we verify something, we should tell you exactly what we verified.
Where we haven't, we should tell you that too.
Trust doesn't come from making reassuring noises.
It comes from telling the truth.
Then there is your data
JCC necessarily handles personal information.
Carer profiles contain personal data.
Families describing care requirements may reveal information about health, disability, medication, mobility or other deeply private aspects of somebody's life.
Health information is classed as special category data under UK GDPR and receives additional legal protection. Organisations processing it need an appropriate lawful basis and an additional condition for processing special-category information.
Depending upon its data-processing activities, JCC may act as a data controller and is then responsible for how and why that information is collected, stored, shared, retained and deleted.
That brings JCC within the world of the Information Commissioner's Office, the Data Protection Act 2018 and UK GDPR. Controllers must also consider whether they are required to pay the ICO data-protection fee.
So no, we cannot shrug and say:
“We're only a platform.”
Not when somebody has trusted us with information about their life.
What about conversations inside JCC?
Another modern piece of the puzzle is the Online Safety Act 2023.
Where an online service allows users to share content or communicate with other users, parts of the Act may apply depending upon how that service operates.
For services in scope, Ofcom requires measures including assessment of illegal-content risks, appropriate protections, reporting mechanisms, complaints procedures and clear terms explaining how illegal content will be dealt with.
Again, being small doesn't mean being careless.
JCC is deliberately creating a private place for carers and families to talk because arranging somebody's care through random Facebook comments and Messenger conversations is precisely the kind of chaos we want to move away from.
But creating that space gives us responsibilities too.
We accept that.
And yes, if you pay JCC, consumer law applies
JCC sells memberships and digital services.
That makes the relationship between JCC and its paying members a commercial one.
Our prices should be clear.
What somebody receives should be clear.
Renewal arrangements should be clear.
Cancellation should be clear.
Terms should not be hidden behind eighteen clicks and a magnifying glass.
Existing UK distance-selling and consumer rules already impose requirements around information and cancellation for online contracts, and further subscription-contract protections under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 are due to strengthen that area.
We don't regard consumer protection as an irritating bit of small print.
If somebody is giving JCC their money, they deserve to know exactly what they are buying.
So what DOES JCC take responsibility for?
Quite a lot.
We take responsibility for the platform we provide.
For describing our services accurately.
For making our boundaries clear.
For protecting information entrusted to us.
For providing appropriate terms and privacy information.
For maintaining sensible moderation and reporting processes.
For not presenting subscriptions as qualifications.
For not pretending somebody has been checked when they haven't.
For taking reasonable action when misuse of the platform is reported.
For examining the laws that apply to our activities as those activities grow.
And, perhaps most importantly, for changing something when we discover that it needs changing.
That last one matters to me.
Because professionalism isn't never getting anything wrong.
It is being prepared to look properly, ask difficult questions and put something right rather than defending it because you've already invested time, money and pride in it.
That is exactly what we're asking carers to do throughout this series.
JCC doesn't get an exemption from its own standards.
What DON'T we take responsibility for?
We cannot guarantee that every person using JCC will behave well.
No platform can.
We cannot guarantee that everything somebody writes in a profile is true unless we have independently verified that particular information.
We cannot guarantee that two perfectly respectable people will have a successful working relationship.
We cannot determine somebody's employment status simply because their agreement says “self-employed”.
We cannot decide whether a carer should perform a particular clinical or care task.
We cannot replace adult safeguarding, the police, CQC, the Fair Work Agency, the ICO, HMRC, professional regulators or the courts where those organisations have jurisdiction.
And we will never tell a family:
“Don't worry, they're on JCC, so everything must be fine.”
No.
Still ask questions.
Still check.
Still discuss the care properly.
Still agree the arrangement in writing.
Still understand who is responsible for what.
Still keep records.
Still trust your instincts.
JCC exists to make those things easier to do properly, not to remove the need to do them.
Why deliberately keep JCC out of the care relationship?
Because there is a very important principle behind this model.
We want professional carers to remain independent.
We want families to have genuine choice.
We don't want to take £40, £50 or £60 from every day's care simply because two people met through our website.
We don't want to control the relationship and then tell carers they are independent when they clearly aren't.
And we don't want families paying thousands of pounds in agency fees for a relationship they are perfectly capable of managing themselves with the right information and structure.
So JCC provides the framework.
The Care Needs section helps families explain what they are looking for.
Carer Profiles help carers explain what they can offer.
The Care Discussion Room gives both sides somewhere sensible to have the important conversations.
Our agreements, forms, calculators, guidance and professional tools help people document what they have decided.
But those tools do not give JCC the right to step into somebody's home and start directing their care.
That boundary is deliberate.
Can you trust JCC?
I'd like the answer to be yes.
But I'm not going to award us that badge ourselves.
Trust is something we have to earn.
And I don't think we earn it by claiming to have no regulator, no responsibilities and no liability because we happen to call ourselves a platform.
We earn it by knowing where the boundaries are.
By checking the law rather than repeating what sounds convenient.
By admitting when an area needs closer examination.
By protecting the information people give us.
By refusing to pretend we provide protections that we don't.
By building new protections where we should.
And by remaining transparent when JCC itself falls under scrutiny.
Because Independent Care, Done Properly cannot just be something we print underneath the logo.
It has to apply to us too.
And if we are asking carers and families to move from chaos to clarity, then JCC has to be prepared to stand right there in the light with them.
Sources and further reading
- Care Quality Commission — Personal care: ongoing role, introductory agencies and individual care workers.
- Care Quality Commission — What is a regulated activity?
- Fair Work Agency / GOV.UK — Overview of the Conduct Regulations 2003.
- Fair Work Agency / GOV.UK — Acting as an intermediary between persons seeking work and a hirer.
- GOV.UK — Working with vulnerable people.
- Information Commissioner's Office — guidance on special-category data and controller responsibilities.
- Ofcom — Illegal content duties under the Online Safety Act.
- GOV.UK — online and distance-selling rules.
Coming tomorrow — Part 6 of 6 in our mini-series, Know Who You’re Connecting With: "When the Placement Is Not What You Were Sold"
Practical support, written agreements and real-world tools.
JCC is a resource hub for independent care — not an agency. Choose the area that fits where you are right now.
Keep reading
Is Just Care Community Worth Subscribing To as a Self-Employed Carer?
Just Care Community is not a care agency or commission-based introductory platform. It is a professional resource and support hub for independent carers who want practical tools, safer systems, clearer working arrangements, and more confidence.
What Is a Care Discussion Room — and Why Should You Use One?
Find each other. Talk privately. Agree clearly. Because care deserves more than a few messages, a handshake and crossed fingers.
When the Placement Is Not What You Were Sold
You were told it was companionship. Perhaps a little help with meals. Some prompting. A bit of company. Nothing particularly demanding. Then you arrive. There are transfers nobody mentioned. The person is waking several times a night. There is medication support you weren't expecting. Mobility is significantly worse than described. What do you do?