Funding cuts left the social care system in crisis even before COVID

Sky News analysis reveals that England's crisis in adult social care long predated the pandemic. All but one council is spending a larger chunk of its budget on care, even though more than half have seen a fall in funding.

Social care
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Sky News analysis reveals that the social care sector was straining from a shortage of funding and a rising need long before the pandemic revealed a system in crisis.

More than half of local authorities experienced a fall in per person spending in the decade to 2020, according to data from NHS Digital.

The numbers are even starker in London, where almost nine in ten local authorities experienced a funding cut.

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How have we done the calculations?

We have chosen to adjust social care spending for inflation and population growth as per person spending in today's prices allows a more accurate comparison over time.

Social care workers provide personal care and protection to vulnerable people of all ages with disabilities and illnesses.

But some say that spending cuts have meant their jobs have shifted from providing quality of life to just keeping people alive.

And the crisis in funding comes at a time when need and cost have never been so high.

Since 2016, the number of new requests for support in England have increased 5.6% and costs have gone up by more than a quarter.

Areas with high levels of deprivation have been most affected.

Real per person spending fell 6.8% on average for the most deprived fifth of councils, compared to a 2.1% rise for the least deprived 20%.

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Some carers work two jobs to pay the bills

The crunch in funding has had a detrimental impact on staff and clients.

Viviane Ferreira De Melo has been a care worker in Lewisham since the start of the pandemic.

"Our job is very demanding and we cannot provide a good quality of care because we have to cover shifts because of a lack of staff," she says.

Viviane Ferreira De Melo is a care worker in Lewisham
Image: Viviane Ferreira De Melo is a care worker in Lewisham

Viviane says she often arrives early and does unpaid work for her clients to give them the care they need.

"To leave them with a smile and know that I've done everything I can for them is what makes me come out every day," she says. "If it wasn't so rewarding, I wouldn't be here anymore."

To provide this care she has to refuse some clients and works a second job as a cleaner to pay her bills each month.

"If things continue as they are, I don't know if I can stay working as a carer," she says. "It's a job I really enjoy but I have to pay my bills, I have a family to support."

Care workers are not paid for travel time between clients, meaning that they are often paid for less than six hours of work when they do an eight-hour shift.

As a result, even councils like Lewisham that pay the London Living wage cannot cannot find care workers, especially when there are lots of other jobs available.

In April, low unemployment pushed the proportion of unfilled roles in care to 10.3%, the highest rate in a decade.

Carers struggle to provide people with quality of life

Tom Brown, Lewisham council's executive director for community services, says funding cuts and staff shortages have necessitated a shift from "giving people quality of life to just helping them survive".

"A decade ago, we were able to be innovative, to try and get ahead of the curve and really make a difference to people's lives," he says.

"The things that we have to do continue but we've had to stop doing things that enhance people's lives."

London councils like Lewisham got less support for adult social care during the pandemic. The North East received around 80% more in grants per person than London.

pandemic support

But the extra support was still vital. Brown says that COVID will have a "very long tail" and the end of this extra support will leave "a huge hole" in adult social care budgets.

"The pressures on councils as the COVID-specific funding ends are already showing," he says.

"There will be an immense impact from the NHS discharging people as they catch up with their COVID backlog."

He says that without more funding, the NHS recovery "will fail" and councils will be forced to shift even more of their limited resources to "propping up" the care sector.

Most councils have already had to reduce spending elsewhere to support adult social care.

All but one council in our analysis now spends a greater share of their money on these services than they did a decade ago.

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Despite this, adult social care services are underfunded and costs are rising faster than inflation as councils try to prop up providers.

Simon Bottery, senior fellow at think tank The King's Fund, says that many providers have struggled to stay in business because of rising labour costs, in part driven by the minimum wage. He says that hiring staff remains the "single biggest issue" for the sector.

"The grind to find enough staff feels overwhelming at the moment and there's no real end in sight," he says.

What is being done to solve the crisis in care?

The government recently introduced new legislation to reform social care. The Health and Care Act introduces a lifetime cap on the amount people will pay towards their care and reduces the price of care for people who self-fund.

This will help many people currently outside the public social care system.

A government spokesperson told Sky News that "the funding made available to councils for social care has increased by over £1 billion annually over the last three years."

They added that the government is "providing record funding for adult social care reform through the Health and Social Care Levy, which will ensure we can tackle Covid backlogs, end spiralling social care costs, and provide a limit to the cost of care for everyone in the adult social care system for the first time."

Some argue the reforms do not address the pressing workforce issues and will increase the strain on local authorities by pushing up costs and demand for their services.

Bottery says the reforms are "real positives", but also a concern for local authorities.

"Local authorities feel overwhelmed," he says. "There is extra cash to support these changes, but local authorities and providers say it isn't sufficient."


The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.

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