PAC warns on costs of Care Act

9 Jul 14
Whitehall does not fully understand the scale of the social care challenge facing local authorities or the costs associated with implementing the Care Act, the Public Accounts Committee has warned.

By Vivienne Russell | 10 July 2014

Whitehall does not fully understand the scale of the social care challenge facing local authorities or the costs associated with implementing the Care Act, the Public Accounts Committee has warned.

In a strongly worded report, published today, the PAC said that, while the government’s care reforms were admirably ambitious, it did not know whether the system had the capacity to become more efficient. The MPs noted that real-terms spending had been cut by 8% since 2010/11, while the number of elderly and disabled people requiring care had increased.

‘The [Care] Act introduces new burdens on local authorities and requires unprecedented levels of coordinated working between central and local government and across local authorities and health bodies,’ said PAC chair Margaret Hodge.

‘The departments recognise the complexities and risks involved but we are not convinced that the responsible bodies will deliver on these ambitions and are concerned that they are raising expectations too high.’

She called on Whitehall departments to quantify the new burdens the Care Act will introduce, establish a realistic timetable for implementation and ‘acknowledge the limits on the sector’s capacity to absorb the growing need for care with falling public funding’.

The Local Government Association said the PAC’s concerns were ‘another stark warning’ that social care funding needs to be put on a sustainable footing.

Katie Hall, chair of the LGA’s community wellbeing board, said: ‘Whilst councils fully support the ambitions of the Care Act reforms, we also agree that without sufficient funding we run the risk of raising expectations too high and jeopardising the potential of the reforms to truly support people’s wellbeing and independence.

Efficiencies alone are not enough to solve the funding crisis in social care. The introduction of the Better Care Fund next year should be a once-in-a-generation opportunity to both improve quality of life for people in their older years and steer England’s social care system away from the road to financial ruin.

‘We urgently need the Government to commit to a bigger Better Care Fund that will join up funding between health and social care over the next five years, providing better support for less money.’

 

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