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When you hear the word “crisis” used in British politics, it’s usually Brexit and climate change that come to mind. But away from these crises, we’re ignoring a far less glamorous emergency in England – the cost of social care. And by ignoring it, we’re letting our government off the hook.
Social care is a – perhaps damagingly bland – term for the care you are entitled to outside of the health service. It covers children’s services, social workers, foster care, help for people with disabilities and long-term physical or mental health conditions, and provision for the elderly.
You may never need to come into contact with social care services; or you may rely on the system from the day you are born. Either way, it’s difficult to drum up political momentum around a service that the majority of people rarely use.
Perhaps that’s part of why its unsustainability has been ignored for so long. That, and the huge and mounting scale of the problem.
In England, social care is the responsibility of local authorities. (As a devolved matter, there are different systems elsewhere in the UK.) Councils are mandated to provide these services for vulnerable people. It is one of their statutory duties, so if they don’t deliver it, they are breaking the law.
Since austerity began in 2010, whereby government spending on local authorities has been cut back by over half (60 pence in every pound by 2020), councils have had to reduce their spending.
This means less money going on the services that they aren’t legally obliged to deliver, and more of the pie eaten up by social care. In fact, social care spending on children has actually gone up while other services have faced deep cuts.
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