ARC England response to Government plan for social care reform

Prime Minster Boris Johnson has today outlined the Government’s plans for social care reform in the UK. The tax will begin as a 1.25% rise in National Insurance from April 2022, and will be a separate tax on earned income from 2023. The plans also place a cap on the amount individuals spend on their care, and from October 2023, the Government say no one starting care in England will be forced to spend more than £86,000 over their lifetime.

ARC England believes that the current crisis in the sector will not be fixed by raising money for one part of the system by increasing a tax on the workforce and capping the cost paid by the recipient because, whilst these measures may start to address the issues with how care for older people should be paid for, they fail to address the wider problems within social care.

Years of Government cuts to Local Authority budgets have resulted in serious financial pressures in the services that LAs commission including those that people with a learning disability, autism or both depend on and the impact of these on pay and terms and conditions has created a crisis in relation to staff retention and recruitment.

If the Government is to be taken seriously on social care funding, it needs to come up with a solution which fixes this and that is why we are supporting the #BetterPay4SocialCare campaign – please sign the petition at www.betterpay4socialcare.org.uk.

Clive Parry, ARC England Director