Care England, the largest and most diverse representative body
for independent providers of adult social care in England, has
today published Two Years of
Promises, a scorecard grading the government's delivery
against every commitment in Labour's 2024 manifesto that bears on
adult social care, from the National Care Service and the Fair
Pay Agreement to immigration, employment rights and hospital
discharge. The overall grade, which comes as Andy spoke of the need for urgent
wholesale reform, is a C minus, or, in the ratings language care
providers are judged by every day, "requires improvement".
The scorecard credits real progress, including the first
multi-year settlement for councils in a decade, the largest ever
rise in the Carer's Allowance earnings limit, and landmark
legislation in the Employment Rights Act and the Mental Health
Act. But it finds a consistent pattern where, when a promise
could be kept by passing a law, it was passed, and where a
promise needed money, it stalled. Two years in, there is no
social care workforce plan, no national standards, and a Fair Pay
Agreement backed by £500 million while frozen tax thresholds are
set to take £1.4 billion from care workers' pay packets over the
same period.
The government received failing grades against two commitments.
The rise in employer National Insurance contributions imposed the
highest single cost increase the sector has faced in a
generation, with the NHS compensated for the measure and care
providers left to absorb it. And on immigration, the government
delivered the restriction it promised while the workforce and
training plans that were meant to accompany it never
materialised, a combination Care England describes as having
"carved out a huge hole in our workforce with no plan to fill it
domestically".
Professor Martin Green OBE, Chief Executive of Care
England, said:
"This government made the right promises on social care, and
where it has delivered, our scorecard says so plainly. But too
much of what was promised exists only on paper. Laws were passed
without the money to make them real, reform was handed to a
commission, and in its first Budget the government imposed the
biggest cost increase this sector has seen in a generation,
compensated the NHS for it, and left care to carry it alone. A C
minus is not a hostile grade. It is an honest one, and it should
not be mistaken for nearly good enough. In the language our
members are judged in every day of the year, this is a service
that requires improvement. And for the people who draw on care
and the people who provide it, too little has actually
changed."
The scorecard pairs its grades with seven steps the new Prime
Minister could take in his first year, none requiring new
legislation. Together they are the chance to turn the hope his
arrival has generated into change that reaches the person waiting
for care, the care worker paying their bills, and the provider
deciding whether to stay open. Care England is calling on the
Prime Minister to:
- Publish the social care workforce and training plan the
manifesto promised
- Reverse the earned settlement proposals as they apply to care
workers, a change already urged from within the government's own
ranks
- Fund the Fair Pay Agreement honestly, with commissioners
under the same legal duty to fund fair wages as providers will be
to pay them
- Pass councils' multi-year funding certainty through to the
providers they commission
- Put a national commissioning framework for hospital discharge
in place before winter, so empty care beds are contracted in
October rather than considered in January
- Apply a care test to fiscal policy, so no future Budget
imposes costs on care that it compensates the NHS for
- Invite Baroness Casey to accelerate her commission, as she
has said she can, rather than treating 2028 as the earliest date
Beyond the seven steps, Care England is inviting him to secure it
early by publishing a 100-day plan for social care. There is real
hope in this sector again, and it now rests on the new Prime
Minister. He knows what the sector is asking for, and the seven
steps above are its foundations already laid. Care England and
its members stand ready to help deliver a plan worthy of that
hope.
Professor Martin Green OBE concluded:
"Andy Burnham enters Downing Street having put social care at
the heart of what he wants his premiership to be, and this sector
has noticed. There is hope in social care again, and hope of that
kind has been in short supply. Our scorecard is not a verdict on
him; it is the baseline he inherits and a map of where delivery
must begin. The seven steps we set out need no new legislation
and would move the grades on this card within a year. Social care
is his to fix, and ours to help him fix, and the work starts
now."
