- Conference
- 2016 National Delegate Conference
- Date
- 1 January 2016
- Decision
- Carried
Conference notes with concern the continuing pressures on council-funded social care services.
Conference believes there is a serious crisis in social care in the UK. This crisis has been developing for a few years and is reaching a critical point. We believe that this crisis is affecting all areas of social care, with children’s social work frontline teams at the forefront.
Conference believes that the ability of the care system to cope with increased demand due to demographic change has been undermined by bad policy choices at national level. Over the past twenty years, local authorities have lost much of their capacity to provide care directly for elderly and vulnerable people in both residential and domiciliary settings. Councils have become reliant on a multitude of private and voluntary sector providers to discharge their duty of care.
Conference believes that the private and voluntary sectors typically offer only low-wage, poor quality employment in social care. The contrast between private and council employers was evident in research by the University of Manchester, which found nearly 70% of private home care providers offered only zero hours contracts to staff, while 90% of local authority providers did not use zero hours contracts at all.
Conference notes that the introduction of George Osborne’s so-called National ‘Living’ Wage of £7.20 from April 2016 is anticipated to increase the care sector’s funding gap by a half by 2020. Conference believes that this illustrates the extent to which this is a low-wage sector, where the statutory minimum rate is currently the basis for wage-setting.
Conference applauds the work around the Ethical Care Charter and welcomes the decisions of councils to sign up to it.
Conference notes that without adequate funding for councils, the private and voluntary organisations that are relied on to provide care services may choose to exit the care sector. It has been predicted that 37,000 residential beds could be lost by 2020 due to increasing costs for employers and ever-tighter contracts being offered by cash-strapped councils.
Conference believes that the funding crisis faced by our councils is such that the ability to introduce a 2% hypothecated council tax rise for social care will not produce sufficient revenue in England.
Though delivery of NHS and Council funded social care may vary in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, funding problems are shared.
Conference notes Composite A passed unanimously by Local Government Conference in June 2009, as amended by A.1 from Surrey County Branch. The amendment (now point 16 in the Composite) states clearly: [Conference calls upon the Service Group Executive…] “To organise a one day conference on social care issues by the end of the year.” This special conference never actually took place.
Conference feels strongly that the crisis in social care has now gone beyond a service-group specific remit and is an issue that affects everyone. For many older people social care is vital in enabling them to have a decent quality of life, supporting their independence and encouraging them to remain active but the crisis in social care means that one in ten of people over the age of 50 are not having their care needs met. Most of frontline social care, home care, day care etc is now in the community or private sector. Mental health care is now more and more jointly delivered by ‘integrated’ health and social care teams.
Conference calls on the National Executive Council to:
1) Campaign for better funding for social care services, highlighting the importance of looking after vulnerable people and the inadequacy of funding arrangements for our councils;
2) Campaign for better pay and employment conditions for social care workers, and to promote greater trade union organisation across the sector;
3) Campaign for a more resilient social care system, through promoting the importance of councils having the capacity to directly meet a substantial proportion of domiciliary and residential care needs in-house;
4) Promote initiatives that support better care services and employment, such as the Ethical Care Charter;
5) Organise a special one-day delegate conference on ‘the Crisis in Social Care’ as a major step towards developing a union-wide organising and publicity campaign in defence of publicly-owned and democratically controlled, good quality social care and social work services;
6) Expand the current remit of the National Social Care Forum to include close working with, and involvement of, other appropriate service groups who deliver social care services, including the Health and Community service groups.
