ADASS says that upcoming budget must meet the needs of people needing care and support

Social care leaders say that Chancellor Rishi Sunak must use the upcoming 2021 Budget, which is due to take place at around 12:30pm today, to put meeting the needs of older and disabled people, carers, and families at the heart of the UK’s economic recovery.

Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS) members say that social care workers have played a vital and heroic role in responding to the coronavirus pandemic and should form a central part of economic recovery.

To do this, ADASS says that the creation of new and rewarding jobs across England will be paramount.

Now, the association has detailed three key steps for the chancellor to take on board to ensure that the needs of older and disabled people, carers and families sits at the heart of the UK Government’s agenda.

1. Short-term funding to stabilise the system, including RESPITE for exhausted social care workers by bringing in new staff and space to enable a national conversation about what we want from social care in future.
2. Commitment to longer-term funding through a 10-year plan for adult social care, starting with RECOVERY from the crisis and moving on to major investment in preventive community services. This must include early agreement on a comprehensive workforce plan which sets a social care minimum wage of £10.90 an hour.
3. REFORM that transforms social care into a pillar of a 21-century welfare state, delivering quality support for people of all ages that enables us to live the lives we want in the place we call home and in communities that look out for each other.

James Bullion, president of the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services, said: “We want to hear the Chancellor explicitly recognise the potential of adult social care to help drive economic recovery.

“We need more than just another reiteration of the promise that the Government will bring forward plans for social care later this year. Those plans should be a foundation stone of the recovery blueprint.”

In the UK Government’s lockdown exit roadmap, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that further funding would be announced in the upcoming 2021 Budget.

Furthermore, in the Department of Health and Social Care’s recent whitepaper about integrated care across health and social care, the government further promised that a separate paper about social care reform would be coming shortly.

Now, social care leaders are waiting to see whether the government mentions anything about social care in today’s budget announcement.