Burstow: No crisis in care funding

Author: Dan Drillsma-Milgrom, LGC - Jan 18, 2012

Care minister Paul Burstow has insisted there is no crisis in the funding of social care.

Giving evidence to the health select committee on Tuesday, Mr Burstow left MPs incredulous after he argued that a combination of government funding and council efficiencies should be able to fill any gap between the demand for care services and the resources available to meet that demand.

Asked by committee member Barbara Keeley (Lab) whether he really believed there was no funding gap, he said his comments related to the current spending review period in which the government had committed £7.2bn of funding and admitted the department had not made any assessment of the next spending review period.

But he then added: “It’s a mistake to generalise and say the system is in crisis.”

There has been a widespread consensus that the social care system is in crisis. Writing in the Daily Telegraph on Tuesday, Andrew Dilnot, who chaired the government’s independent commission on social care, said: “The systems we have for providing the care that older people need are broken, not fit for purpose, and hugely overdue for reform.”.

Mr Burstow cited evidence from Julie Jones, chief executive of the Social Care Institute for Excellence, that there was no direct link between the funding received by local authorities and the outcomes they achieved and that the way councils responded to the challenges they faces could help them “mitigate potential problems”.

“This is not a simple issue of how much resource the government is putting in [to the system],” he said. “It’s also a question of the choices local authorities are making.”

Asked how he thought the public would respond to his comments at the committee, Mr Burstow said: “My response is clear. There need not be a gap in funding if local authorities take the sort of efficiency steps that the LGA has accepted is possible of 3%. The issue is whether or not each local authority is choosing to do that.”

Cross-party talks on care funding began this week and Mr Burstow said the first meeting had been constructive. However, shadow health minister Liz Kendall, who is taking part in the talks, said Mr Burstow needed to acknowledge the crisis in funding for care services.

“For Paul Burstow to deny there’s a growing crisis in care for older people shows just how desperately out of touch he is with what’s going on on the ground,” she said.

Mr Burstow confirmed to the committee that the government hoped to be able to legislate on reforming social care in the current parliament. He said a progress report on funding would be published alongside a white paper in the spring.

David Rogers (Lib Dem), chairman of the LGA’s community wellbeing board, said: “The government can’t keep burying its head in the sand. This is a problem of growing demand and escalating costs in a system that is underfunded and compounded now by severe funding cuts.

“It is deeply worrying that despite the best efforts of councils, leading charities and the government’s own experts, the message that we are facing a financial crisis still doesn’t seem to be getting through.

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