• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • About DNS
  • Subscribe to DNS
  • Advertise with DNS
  • Support DNS
  • Contact DNS

Disability News Service

the country's only news agency specialising in disability issues

  • Home
  • Independent Living
    • Arts, Culture and Sport
    • Crime
    • Education
    • Employment
    • Housing
    • Transport
  • Activism & Campaigning
  • Benefits & Poverty
  • Politics
  • Human Rights
You are here: Home / Independent Living / Ministerial duo dismiss concerns over social care funding crisis
Gillian Keegan and Kemi Badenoch give evidence in a Commons committee room, flanked by a man and a woman, and watched by onlookers

Ministerial duo dismiss concerns over social care funding crisis

By John Pring on 26th May 2022 Category: Independent Living

Listen

Two ministers have dismissed mounting evidence of a care funding crisis and have repeatedly insisted that local councils have all the money they need to “effectively” deliver social care services.

Both social care minister Gillian Keegan and local government minister Kemi Badenoch told MPs on Tuesday that there was no need for an urgent funding increase for adult social care in England.

Boris Johnson repeated the message in prime minister’s questions yesterday (Wednesday) when he insisted that his government was “fixing” social care.

Keegan and Badenoch’s evidence to the Commons levelling up, housing and communities committee came just days after the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services warned that a survey had found more than half a million adults were waiting for social care in England.

In February, Disability News Service revealed how research had shown that tens of thousands of disabled people across the country were having debt collection action taken against them every year by their local authorities over unpaid care charges.

In the same month, an ombudsman ruled that a disabled woman took her own life after being wrongly sent a string of invoices demanding payment of care charges she did not owe.

But Keegan and Badenoch insisted on Tuesday that local councils had all the money they needed to provide adult social care.

Keegan told the committee that there was “more money going into the system than ever before”.

She added: “There is in our assessment sufficient funding to allow councils to continue to effectively deliver adult social care services, but there’s no doubt that what we are talking about is a system that needs to be reformed.”

Badenoch told the committee: “We think the funding is at the right amount.”

And she added: “As far as we can see, we are providing enough money to the sector.”

She admitted later: “The demand for adult social care in particular is really outstripping the rate at which we can fund it.”

But she then added: “Given the growth that we have at the moment in the country… I think we are doing relatively well in terms of funding adult social care.”

Keegan continually stressed the importance of the much-criticised government reforms that will introduce a new £86,000 cap on care charges in England but will not count financial contributions made by local authorities to people’s care and support.

The disabled crossbench peer Baroness [Jane] Campbell, who has led parliamentary attempts to ease the burden of care charges on working-age disabled people, has described those reforms as “criminal” and warned that they “will continue to push disabled people of all ages into greater poverty and dependency”.

But Keegan said the government’s funding reforms, and work to integrate the health and social care systems, would make a crucial difference to the adult social care system.

When asked whether ministers would be asked the same questions again about the social care funding crisis after the government’s next announcement of departmental spending allocations, Keegan said such questions were “just a normal part of the discussions about how you allocate resources”.

She said later: “Of course we recognise that the quality of care, the sustainability of care, the investment in the workforce, all of that needs to change, which is why we’ve put these reforms in place.

“These reforms, plus the integration reforms, which I think are a very important foundational pillar as well, to make sure that the system works for better for people, I do believe if we get those right then it will transform our social care system.”

Picture: Gillian Keegan (second from left) and Kemi Badenoch (second from right) giving evidence this week

 

A note from the editor:

Please consider making a voluntary financial contribution to support the work of DNS and allow it to continue producing independent, carefully-researched news stories that focus on the lives and rights of disabled people and their user-led organisations.

Please do not contribute if you cannot afford to do so, and please note that DNS is not a charity. It is run and owned by disabled journalist John Pring and has been from its launch in April 2009.

Thank you for anything you can do to support the work of DNS…

Share this post:

Share on TwitterShare on FacebookShare on WhatsAppShare on Reddit

Tags: ADASS adult social care care charging Gillian Keegan Kemi Badenoch levelling up housing and communities committee social care

Related

Praise for ‘bold’ and ‘progressive’ council as it scraps care charges
9th March 2023
Labour-linked inquiry set to rule out scrapping care charges
9th March 2023
System for challenging councils’ care decisions ‘is confusing, slow and stressful’, says EHRC
2nd March 2023

Primary Sidebar

Subscribe to the free Access London Theatre Guide

Access

Latest Stories

Disability discrimination in Met police is ‘baked into the system’, says report

Evidence mounts of disability benefits white paper’s fatal flaws

Court orders second Jodey Whiting inquest to probe consequences of DWP’s actions

‘Nonsensical’ disability benefits white paper sparks return of Spartacus

Concern over expansion of supported internship scheme ‘with potential for exploitation’

Labour ‘shares concerns’ about government’s work capability assessment plans

‘Heartless’ reforms to disability benefits ‘defy logic’

DWP white paper offers mix of ‘human catastrophe’ and overdue reforms

DWP figures show 600,000 could be missing out on disability benefits

DLA ‘disallowances’ plummeted after death of Philippa Day, DWP figures show

Advice and Information

Readspeaker

Footer

The International Standard Serial Number for Disability News Service is: ISSN 2398-8924

  • Accessibility Statement
  • Privacy Policy
  • Site map
  • Facebook
  • Twitter

Copyright © 2023 Disability News Service

Site development by A Bright Clear Web