New inquiry to investigate Covid pandemic's impact on social care sector

Care providers are invited to give evidence to a new inquiry which has been launched to examine the Covid pandemic’s impact on the social care sector and its long-term funding.

The inquiry, launched by the Housing Communities and Local Government Committee, will consider how more funding can be raised to ensure the long-term stability of the sector and how care providers can be supported to improve innovation.

The Committee is inviting submissions on the following questions:

• How has Covid-19 changed the landscape for long-term funding reform of the adult social care sector?

• How should additional funds for the adult social care sector be raised?

• How can the adult social care market be stabilised?

• How can the adult social care market be incentivised to compete on quality and/or innovation?

The Committee's deadline for submissions is 15 April 2021.

Launching the inquiry, Committee Chair Clive Betts MP said: “We have seen year on year the demand on services increasing, while local authority budgets have been stretched more and more.

'A financial plan for decades not just months'

“The Government has attempted to address this spasmodically with one-off pots of funding for the most critical needs, but it is clear the we must have a solution that provides a financial plan for decades, not just months."

In 2018-19, the adult social care sector accounted for 41 per cent of local authority expenditure.

Covid-19 has placed additional pressures on adult social care with increased costs due to extra PPE, cleaning and staff costs, while a fall in demand for services threatens to put providers out of business.

Clive Betts added: “Unless the funding of social care is resolved there will continue to be more cuts to other council services and this is simply not sustainable.

“Our new inquiry sets out to understand how Covid-19 has placed further stress on an already challenging environment, and the likely long-term consequences for adult social care."

"Given the likely long-term financial implications of the pandemic on society as a whole, we will also reconsider how we can provide the necessary funding boost fairly and look at how we can support the sector to innovate in how it provides care.”

The Committee carried out a joint inquiry with the Health and Social Care Committee on the long-term funding of adult social care in 2018.

It called for the establishment of a Parliamentary Commission to develop a long-term funding solution covering housing as well as health and social care services.

It also recommended that more funding be raised through council tax reform, a new ring-fenced social care premium for the over-40s or increases to inheritance tax above a certain threshold.

To submit evidence to the inquiry, click here