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Consultation Response

Adult Social Care Reform: The Cost of Inaction

Our response to the Health and Social Care Committee inquiry on adult social care

WBG and NEF analysis shows that prior to the Covid-19 pandemic an estimated 1.8 million people aged 65 and over had unmet care needs 1 . The crisis in social care didn’t start with the current cost of living crisis, the pandemic, nor with austerity policies imposed in the decade from 2010, but all have exacerbated the challenges. Even before the 2008 financial crash, underfunding was creating an underpaid and undervalued care workforce. Increasing numbers of people were being left with unmet needs, and others were paying catastrophic costs for their care. This resulted in increasingly unsustainable demands being put on unpaid carers, the majority of whom are women 2 . While care provided within families may appear to be free, it has a cost. It has a cost to those needing care and those providing it, to the state indirectly, and to gender equality. Although the situation is now far worse, these are the same issues defining the adult social care crisis today.

The net costs of a reformed care system must be funded by central government. Regional and income-based inequalities mean that the poorest local authorities are the ones with the greatest social care needs. So, expecting local authorities to increase funding for social care through council tax or business rates would inevitably widen regional inequalities. Those areas with the greatest care needs have the least ability to raise taxes and have already had to make the greatest reductions in services.

The Women’s Budget Group proposes moving to a high-quality universal care service that is free at the point of need, supports wellbeing, self-determination and enhances capacities; trains and pays its staff appropriately in line with the Real Living Wage; and ensures that unpaid care is genuinely voluntary. Our modelling estimates that this would generate 928,000 jobs in the economy as a whole (in care and across the economy from multiplier effect and increased purchasing power). A full breakdown of the costings are provided in the final section of this paper.

Read our full response

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