Social care

Social care needs proper funding, not Big Society 2.0

This article originally appeared in The New Statesman.

The language of “community power” is too often used to paper over the cracks of ten years of local austerity, writes Associate Director for Policy, Tom Lloyd Goodwin.

“The Conservatives are the real party of public services.” This was one of the many bold claims from the dispatch box during this year’s autumn spending review. But in the wake of the now-published adult social care reform white paper, this promise rings increasingly hollow.

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Caring for the earth, caring for each other

During the peak of the first lockdown, people gathered on their doorsteps to clap for carers. Now it’s time to truly recognise their value.

The inadequacies of England’s current adult social care system have been harrowingly exposed by Covid-19. However, the origins of the present crisis long precede the pandemic. For too long, caring and nurturing work, predominantly performed by women, has been devalued. Caring for the earth, caring for each other: a radical industrial strategy for adult social care, a new joint report from CLES and Common Wealth, argues that care work should be valued and invested in as green work, and calls for a people-centred industrial strategy for adult social care.
“the care system should be at the heart of the plan for a just and green recovery”
The devaluation of care work has been accelerated by privatisation and commercialisation, which has driven a race to the bottom in care worker pay and conditions and a deterioration in care quality. Reimagining the care system should be at the heart of the plan for a just and green recovery from Covid-19. In designing the more just and sustainable decarbonised economy of the future, care must be recognised as a service vital for our collective wellbeing: one that needs to be substantially expanded and better valued.

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  • Caring for the earth, caring for each other

    21st March 2021
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  • A progressive approach to adult social care

    19th August 2020
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    • Things will not get better: We need radical action on adult care and children’s services

    This article originally appeared in The Municipal Journal.
    “Given the longevity and the often fruitless talk about these crises, the time has come to accept that we now have a massive state crisis, which is grounded in inaction.”
    Talk of our local public services being in crisis is now sadly an embedded part of our local government conversation. Exacerbated by nearly 10 years of austerity, the fact that rising social need is and will not be met by adequate provision is now the condition of many services including adult care and children’s. Given the longevity and the often fruitless talk about these crises, the time has come to accept that we now have a massive state crisis, which is grounded in inaction.

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