When the Care Act was passed, my predecessor as president of the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (Adass) hailed it as the most important legislation for the care and support of adults for 60 years. David Pearson was not wrong, but today we must acknowledge that the act has yet to live up to its potential.
The act reframed local authorities’ statutory duties – moving from providing outdated services for specific groups of people to promoting health and wellbeing. But as Pearson warned, the overall level of funding for social care needs to be sustainable to meet the act’s aspirations. That has not, of course, been the case and today we should be asking ourselves: how far have the ambitions of the Care Act been realised?
Adass welcomed all the act’s key pillars: its focus on information and advice to enable people to make informed choices; care and support based around individuals and focused upon wellbeing and control; advocacy for people in need to enable them to speak out; safeguards for individuals at risk of abuse or neglect; and the goal of creating vibrant care markets.
Despite these best intentions, it is evident that the act on its own was not enough to achieve fundamental change. An integral part of the legislation, the cap on individual care costs, was delayed by government, then kicked into the long grass and not implemented. And the act came into force when year-on-year savings were being made: adult social care has delivered £7.7bn savings in the past decade (pdf) against a backdrop of increasing need.
The additional short-term funding that’s been made available to social care in recent years has merely served to paper over the cracks – to keep an ailing system upright. Austerity has profoundly affected care. There has been a drastic retraction in the range and capacity of services and the number of people supported by them. People with the most intense needs have been prioritised – meaning less resources available to prevent escalating needs in others.
Local authorities are working hard to offer support within the spirit of the act. Many are having success, but not at the scale that we’d ideally want to see. Major problems remain with the degree to which the act can be implemented, having a significant impact upon individuals receiving care and their families. This is despite the best efforts and dedication of people working in adult social care.
The reality of the current system remains a distant stretch from the one imagined by the legislation. How many more people with a range of support needs could have been supported to live safely and well at home if those £7.7bn savings had not been made? With a properly funded system, the act could be the already-in-place legislation and the answer that many seeking change have been asking for.
To fully support the transformation of lives that the act intended, we need long-term funding and reform to build care and support for the millions of us who need it. We need a system linked with other public services that supports individuals, families and communities. Only by giving social care a solid platform to work from can we truly support people in the way envisaged in 2014.
Julie Ogley is director of social care, health and housing at Central Bedfordshire council and president of the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services
