Amidst a funding crisis and inconsistent council fees, Ian Pritchard, Chief Executive at Alternative Futures Group, examines whether the government’s 10 year reform plan can stabilise the social care sector.
The fiscal alarm bells for social care have been ringing for years, yet successive governments continue to tune out this urgent call. As a leading social care provider supporting adults with learning disabilities or mental health conditions, now is the time to boldly address the sector’s financial challenges. Government neglect, underfunding, and inconsistent commissioning now threaten the sector’s survival.
Social care isn’t just elderly care—half of the funding supports working-age adults, with 68% allocated to adults with learning disabilities. We can’t forget these amazing people in our society and the dedicated individuals who support them to live fulfilling lives. In the Chancellor’s recent Autumn Statement, it was extremely disappointing to hear no mention of significant financial investment in social care. The promised £600 million grant will barely scratch the estimated £8.3 billion needed to “fix” the sector.
The Chancellor’s 1.2% employer NI increase (alongside a reduction in qualifying limits) and a 6.7% National Living Wage rise effectively writes the closure notice for many providers, adding a further 10.3% to care provision costs. Like NHS providers, social care providers should be granted exemption from recent employer NI changes—why is this not the case? While providers welcome the National Living Wage increase as a reward for dedicated front-line care workers, we must ask: where is the equity with the NHS to ensure colleagues in both critical care functions are equally rewarded?
If we expect a professional care service, we need to ensure care workers are paid and treated as professionals. Rather than creating an expensive national care service, we need proper funding and smart commissioning of existing providers.
The Care Act was built on the assumption that Local Authorities could fully fund and shape their care services according to community needs. However, insufficient government funding and poor commissioning models have fragmented the provider landscape and created significant inconsistencies across regions, leading to a low-pay economy across the care sector. All that’s needed is better funding and reform in commissioning.
One of the most obvious issues is the drastic inconsistency in Local Authority provider rates—a postcode lottery that makes it nearly impossible for providers to operate sustainably. For instance, Cheshire East (CE) pays providers 15% less than neighbouring Cheshire West and Chester (CWAC), despite similar demographic needs. This underfunding forces many CE providers to subsidise millions to maintain essential services for the most vulnerable—a scenario replicated nationwide.
At Alternative Futures Group, we’ve spent the past decade reshaping our model to build reserves, pay our staff a Real Living Wage, and demonstrate that investing in the sector is the only way to deliver the high-quality care people deserve. The crisis and underfunding in social care have been acknowledged by nearly every politician, but action remains elusive. Social care continues to be deprioritised, with no concrete plan or roadmap from the government. Until there is clarity, our sector remains underfunded, under pressure, and overlooked.
Real change requires more than words; we need a commitment to stabilise local authority social care budgets and address ongoing funding shortfalls. This is about providing consistent, quality care for valuable members of our society. If the government is serious about meaningful reform, it must act now to safeguard the future of the social care sector—because those we are supporting can’t afford for them to wait.
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