“This is a significant watering down of promises, which even as they stood would only have taken us on the first steps towards a more sustainable and refocused future for social care. People who draw on care and support will understandably feel frustrated and concerned by these developments."
Responding to the Government’s publication, ‘Next steps to put the people at the heart of care’, Cllr David Fothergill, Chairman of the Local Government Association’s Community Wellbeing said:
“This publication illustrates the complex web of different pots of funding which have been allocated to support adult social care, some allocated to councils often with specific conditions some via the NHS and some to be spent nationally. This is not the way to get best value from the available resources.
“The plan to invest in workforce skills and digitisation is necessary for the reform of social care but not sufficient to deliver the changes that are needed to invest in prevention and recovery and address low pay and unmet need.
“It is disappointing that only £700 million of the previously announced sum of £1.7 billion has been allocated in this paper and that the investment in workforce has been halved and a planned allocation to housing is gone.
“This is a significant watering down of promises, which even as they stood would only have taken us on the first steps towards a more sustainable and refocused future for social care. People who draw on care and support will understandably feel frustrated and concerned by these developments.
“Given the well documented capacity issues and levels of unmet and under met need, it is hard to see how reducing the funding available to begin to address some of the issues can be justified.
“We are calling for the £600 million that is yet to be allocated to be clearly ringfenced for social care and given to councils, without additional conditions, to help address immediate care needs in communities.”