A think tank has warned that the Government’s short-term approach to funding adult social care will not deliver the level of service expected by the public.
A new report from the Institute for Government (IfG) says that Government spending on adult social care fell 9.5% in real terms throughout the first half of the 2010s, only returning to 2009/10 levels again in 2019/20.
The think tank accused the Government of depending on short-term, emergency pots of money – what it describes as an inefficient cycle of ‘crisis-cash-repeat’ – rather than long-term funding.
With an estimated 165,000 adult social care vacancies, the staffing crisis affecting the care sector is ‘now arguably more severe than the higher profile one in the NHS itself,’ the IfG says. This will continue to be the case while there is a ‘lack of financial stability’.
The report says that the Government has another opportunity to address the care sector’s issues in tomorrow’s spring budget.
Recent comments from social care minister Helen Whately suggest more financial support will not be forthcoming. However, local government minister Lee Rowley last week told MPs calling for long-term funding of councils and social care that plans to be revealed shortly would ‘assuage some of their concerns’.
