PM contender commits to more social care funding
By Gemma Raw
Conservative leadership candidate Liz Truss has announced that, if elected, she will make sure that the £13 billion promised to the social care sector will be available.
The additional funding for social care was to come from the recently introduced rise in National Insurance (NI), which next year is due to be separated out into a new Health and Social Care Levy. However, Ms Truss has pledged to scrap the NI increase to help people with the cost-of-living crisis. Amid concerns that this might have an impact on social care funding, she addressed the issue in a recent Sky News leadership debate, saying that she would 'make sure we're putting the recent funding we allocated – the £13 billion – into social care'.
Voters are sceptical
Recent research commissioned by Just Group shows significant scepticism amongst Conservative voters that either of the Tory leadership candidates, Liz Truss or Rishi Sunak, will fix the problems in social care. When asked which of the candidates they most trust to do so, 40% chose Ms Truss and 23% chose Mr Sunak. However, a significant proportion (37%) said that neither candidate was up to the job.
A social care crisis
Chaired by MP Damien Green, Public Policy Projects (PPP) is a global policy institute offering practical analysis and development across a range of sectors, including health and social care. In July, PPP published The Social Care Workforce: Averting a Crisis, a report calling for a 'shift in public perception' to attract more people into social care jobs and promote staff retention. The report's recommendations include raising the minimum wage for adult social care staff, mirroring the NHS Agenda for Change pay scale, providing funding for workforce wellbeing and engaging with young people in schools to positively promote working in social care roles as a technically skilled and fulfilling career.
Giving social workers a voice
Dr Ruth Allen, Chief Executive of the British Association of Social Workers (BASW), has written to both Tory leadership candidates on behalf of social workers to highlight priorities and concerns. In her letter, Dr Allen refers to the growing size and complexity of the caseloads being handled by those working in children's social work jobs, calling for the new PM to ensure that there are enough social workers available to provide the legally required services to all those that need it. According to Department for Education figures, there are currently over 6,400 full-time equivalent children and family social worker vacancies in England.
"From the Adult Social Care Crisis to the growing number of children in care – these issues cannot wait," writes Dr Allen. "People without private funding or sufficient personal resources will find it harder to get on in life, and we believe it is the role of Government to enable people and provide services that will deliver a good quality of life for every person."
Download the full text of the BASW letters here.
