JRF criticises governments’ progress in social care

The John Rowntree Foundation has published a report criticising the failure of the UK’s four governing bodies to learn from their different approaches to social care since devolution. Entitled ‘The impact of devolution’, the report specifically looks at how long-term care funding has been affected in the first decade of devolution. Although the English and Scottish Parliaments and the Northern Irish and Welsh Assemblies now all taken a different approach to providing and funding social services, the JRF report shows that the governing bodies have not learned from each other’s failures and successes. A key example is the provision of free personal care in Scotland, which has been available for several years. England is now set to follow suit, despite the fact that Scotland is now considering scrapping its personal care scheme as it is too expensive. The JRF wants the four administrations to look more closely at each other’s operations to identify realistic ways they can continue to provide effective services despite public spending cuts, stating that: ‘The need to learn from each other, even if policies differ somewhat, will become much more acute in the next decade.’ Another problem highlighted in the report is the non-devolved nature of much of the support network that underpins the social care service, such as the benefits and welfare system. This means that if the English Parliament decides to make sweeping changes to certain benefits, such as the proposed abolition of Attendance Allowance to help fund a new social care system, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland will be forced to take account of this in their own funding policies.

Tags: social care