BASW England comment on the impact of the Autumn Statement on adult social care

BASW England warmly welcome the increase in funding, but we reserve major concerns about the workforce capacity to deliver the scale of care expected in the coming years.

Last week Jeremy Hunt MP delivered his first Autumn Statement as Chancellor. This was a wide-ranging budget with significant changes to tax and spending in the UK. You can read the full BASW UK response and comment from our Chief Executive, Ruth Allen, here.

BASW England are responding to the plans set out in relation to adult social care and the implications this will have for the social work and social care workforce.

Funding and care cap delay

In September 2021, the Government had originally set out its plan to reform adult social care, which included changes to the care cap and how care is paid for as well as plans for wider system reform.

The plan would have meant a new cap of £86,000, ensuring that no person would have to spend over this on personal care over their lifetime. These plans have now been delayed until October 2025 taking us past the next general election and into the next Parliament.

Instead of introducing the proposed care cap, the Government is now redirecting the allocated funds for this to go, instead, to local authorities to provide an extra 200,000 care packages over the next two years.

The Chancellor claims the £2.8 billion funding next year and the £4.7 billion funding the year after represents the “biggest increase in funding under any government of any colour in history.”

Whilst an increase in funding for adult social care is welcome and much needed, concerns remain about the reliance on the increased powers for councils to raise council tax and the wider impact this will have on their budgets. These plans also fall short of plugging the funding gaps left after over a decade of austerity since 2010.

BASW England also notes the commitment to the £500 million announced in September for the social care discharge fund. However, we remain concerned about how the funds will be distributed between health and social care and where the money will eventually be spent. We also question how much of a say that those in the social work profession will have in deciding how funds are allocated.

If social care is financed differently from health, then what does this say about integration? Social care must be treated alongside health as an equal partner and receive funds on the same basis.

We urge the government and local Integrated Care Boards to ensure that the role of social workers, who are essential in hospital discharge processes, are heard when considering the allocation of funds to ensure that decision making is fair and equitable taking account of the pressures on the existing workforce.

What our members say

Ahead of the Government’s Autumn Statement, BASW England surveyed members and registered social workers on the proposed delay to the care cap reforms, as well as other key issues affecting the wider workforce.

A full summary of the findings can be found here.

Our findings showed that over half of respondents to our survey (51.3%) supported a delay to the implementation of the care cap until after the next general election with less than a quarter (23.5%) supporting immediate implementation.

When asked about the best way to support the workforce, respondents considered a national recruitment strategy as well as a national review of pay, terms and conditions to be the best way of doing this. Workforce wellbeing also scored higher than the option of simply deferring the social care reforms.

It’s clear that whilst many registered social workers will welcome deferment of the care cap reforms, they consider the more urgent issues to be those that directly relate to the recruitment and retention of staff within the workforce. This is something that has come up regularly in our engagement with members.

More action needed to support social workers and the social care workforce

Members have told us time and time again that the existing workforce cannot tackle this crisis alone and that urgent action is needed to address this.

Figures released by Skills For Care in October revealed that vacancies in adult social care had increased by 52% to their highest rates and that the workforce had shrunk for the first time ever.

This workforce crisis will not be solved by a delay to reforms and allocating funding for extra care packages, especially as the current workforce will be required to deliver the extra care the newly announced funding will be expected to deliver.

BASW England restates our call for a national recruitment strategy as well as a long-term workforce strategy for social care that considers the challenges and changes the sector will have to grapple with in the coming years. If such a comprehensive plan is proposed for the health workforce, then the equivalent is needed for social care. Without this, and sustainable long-term investment in the sector, the existing inequality between health and social care will prevail.

Government should already be aware of the issues concerning the health and social care workforce, especially as we still await the outcome of Health Education England’s review to update their existing HEE Framework 15, which for the first time, includes the social care workforce.

BASW England engaged with our members extensively to ensure that the voice of social work would be heard in this review and we call on the Health Secretary to publish the findings as soon as possible so that time is not wasted on enacting the necessary changes to build a workforce fit for the scale of the challenges across health and social care.