Why we don’t know how much a ‘National Care Service’ could cost UK

Friday 03 January 2025 4:12 pm

Well being secretary Wes Streeting has unveiled the federal government’s newest transfer in the direction of reform of the UK’s social care system.

Taking the type of an impartial fee into the difficulty, led by Baroness Louise Casey, the assessment – reporting in 2026 and 2028 – will goal to construct “cross-party consensus” for the creation of a brand new Nationwide Care Service.

Streeting’s – and Labour’s – long-term goal, they are saying, is to create a “nationwide consensus” round such a service which might take care of the UK’s aged and disabled within the twenty first century and for it to “survive governments of various shades”, because the NHS has performed.

What’s the response been?

Charities and opposition events had been swift to criticise the federal government for the prolonged assessment timeframe.

Professor Martin Inexperienced, Care England chief govt, harassed: “This fee will merely verify what we already know – what number of extra experiences should we endure earlier than motion is taken?”

Whereas Liberal Democrat chief Sir Ed Davey branded it “one other excuse to kick the can down the highway” – and mentioned the assessment needs to be “performed and dusted inside a yr at most”.

Shadow well being secretary Edward Argar said: “After 14 years in opposition it’s deeply disappointing that Labour doesn’t have a plan for social care.”

How a lot might a Nationwide Care Service value?

At this stage, it’s successfully inconceivable to say. The federal government is but to formally publish the phrases of reference for the fee – and what the fee may suggest, could possibly be anybody’s guess.

In Scotland, the place plans for a Scottish Nationwide Care Service (NCS) are underway however have been delayed, the federal government needs to switch accountability for social care from councils to a brand new nationwide physique.

A Scotgov factsheet states that within the “most up-to-date monetary yr [2022-2023] that we’ve got full figures for spending on social care in Scotland,… £5.75bn was spent on social care”.

The federal government additionally expects prices of round £345m over the following decade to “make the NCS a actuality”, together with organising a Nationwide Board, Nationwide Social Work Company and the NCS Native Boards.

Scotland’s inhabitants is round 5.5m – with the inhabitants of England and Wales a lot larger at nearly 61m.

And talking to Metropolis AM, outgoing Institute for Fiscal Research (IFS) director Paul Johnson harassed the size of the problem for the federal government.

“What folks ignore is social care is now delivered by 153 native authorities,” he mentioned. “Will they actually take all that accountability away and make it a nationwide service – or will they goal to make it extra constant throughout the nation?

“[The commission] has received an terrible lot of issues to have a look at – from the workforce low pay, to our getting old inhabitants, the standard of care, the actual fact those that pay for their very own care are subsidising those that are funded by councils.”

How might or not it’s funded?

Once more, at this stage, we don’t know the federal government’s plans for funding an NCS – however questions are sure to come up.

As Dr Clarissa Giebel, Senior Analysis Fellow within the Institute of Inhabitants Well being, wrote final yr: “Wouldn’t it imply a tax for everybody, much like Nationwide Insurance coverage? 

“Wouldn’t it be an moreover embedded charge inside our council tax, though a few of us already pay a social care charge inside our council tax?”

Underneath the earlier authorities, in September 2021, a cap on social care prices of some £86,000 was introduced, which might be the max every particular person must pay.

This – alongside an introduced £3.6bn to pay for reforms – was later delayed till 2024 after which scrapped by Chancellor Rachel Reeves in her October Finances.

However might these sums issue right into a fee’s findings – and plans for the NCS?

Nonetheless, in the case of paying the invoice, the federal government shall be on the hook for that one and any political or financial fallout from such a call.

It is because, as Johnson famous, the fee itself can be unlikely to have any say over the funding of any NCS – or the place the cash for it would come from.

“Often these commissions are instructed by the Treasury not to have a look at the place the cash may come from, because the Treasury sees it as their function,” he defined.

“The very last thing the Treasury can be prepared to countenance is the assessment recommending, for instance, rising revenue tax.”