The National Care Forum (NCF) is the leading association for not-for-profit social care and support organisations. Responding to the Chancellor’s spring budget, Professor Vic Rayner OBE, CEO of the NCF said:
“The next General Election has to take place by the end of 2024, and the announcements made today are those that the government is banking on making a tangible difference by then.
“Making working in care more affordable is absolutely the right thing to do. Two elements of today’s budget support that ambition, and we welcome both the increased availability of funded childcare and the extension of the Energy Price Guarantee to ensure that households are not faced with further catastrophic increases in energy bills. However, we are disappointed that there is no further tailored support for the catastrophic energy costs being faced by all of our not-for-profit members.
“The recognition that workers over 50 are an integral part of the workforce is welcome, but the government has missed a massive opportunity to lay out clear strategy for investing in a fully funded workforce plan that enables the care workforce to be paid at a rate that recognises their skills, knowledge and expertise.
“The focus on getting the nation working reveals an obvious gap in the Chancellor’s logic. Carers UK suggests that 41% of those who became carers in the last decade are aged between 45 and 65, prime working age according to the Chancellor. Therefore, supporting their ability to stay in the workforce by increasing both the support to carers, and the availability of high-quality care through a sustainable social care sector, should surely be a fundamental tenet of the Chancellor’s announcements.
Let’s remember that the funding announced in the Autumn Statement was never sufficient to stabilise the sector, never mind reform it; care providers said it, Local Government said it, representatives of those receiving care and support said it – and the Chancellor himself would have said it were he still wearing his hat as the Chair of the Health and Social Care Select Committee.
“To ignore the critical role that care and support plays in supporting people into employment, to remain in employment and to stimulate the local economy is an own goal for the government. If you want to make work work, then you need to make care work – and you need to do it now.”
