No funded social care commitments in Labour manifesto
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The Labour Party has made no funded commitments on social care in its general election manifesto, published yesterday.
While the party said it would introduce a fair pay agreement for adult social care workers and indicated it would implement the current government’s adult social care charging reforms, it did not allocate any resources to either, prompting criticism that the policies would trigger cuts elsewhere.
The party, which is widely tipped to win power on the 4 July election, also set out a longer-term plan to create a “national care service”, which it said would deliver “consistency of care across the country” through national standards that ensured “high-quality care and ongoing sustainability”. However, it did not set out further detail on what this would look like nor how it would be funded.
On children’s social care, it said it would strengthen regulation of the sector – though did not set out how – and introduce a “single unique identifier for children and families” to prevent them “falling through the cracks of public services” and aid information sharing.
However, like the Conservatives, Labour did not commit to implementing the current government’s children’s social care reforms, which are mostly still at the testing stage and would likely carry a multi-billion pound price tag when fully rolled out.
Lack of funding commitments
Also, while it promised to provide councils with multi-year funding settlements – a pledge also made by the Tories – there was no commitment to address overall funding levels, despite the Local Government Association saying authorities in England faced a £6.2bn funding gap over the next two years.
The lack of funded commitments on social care is similar to the position put forward by the Conservatives in their manifesto, published earlier this week.
Labour also followed the Tories in committing to reform the Mental Health Act 1983 (MHA), which the opposition party said would “give patients greater choice, autonomy, enhanced rights and support, and ensure everyone is treated with dignity and respect throughout treatment”.
This is a similar vision to that set out in the current government’s draft Mental Health Bill, which it failed to follow with full legislation to reform the MHA despite this being a commitment in the 2019 Conservative manifesto.
However, as was the case with the Conservatives, there was no reference to Labour reviving the Liberty Protection Safeguards, which is designed to provide a more efficient alternative to the for the Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards, but whose implementation was shelved by the current government last year.
Labour’s adult social care pledges
“Labour will undertake a programme of reform to create a national care service, underpinned by national standards, delivering consistency of care across the country. Services will be locally delivered, with a principle of ‘home first’ that supports people to live independently for as long as possible. Our new standards will ensure high-quality care and ongoing sustainability, and ensure providers behave responsibly. Labour will develop local partnership working between the NHS and social care on hospital discharge.
“We will enhance partnership working across employers, workers, trade unions and government and establish a fair pay agreement in adult social care. This sector collective agreement will set fair pay, terms and conditions, along with training standards. Labour will consult widely on the design of this agreement, before beginning the process and learn from countries where they operate successfully.
“Labour is committed to ensuring families have the support they need. We will guarantee the rights of those in residential care to be able to see their families. As part of the efforts to move healthcare into local communities and professionalise the workforce, we will task regulators with assessing the role social care workers can play in basic health treatment and monitoring.
“Alongside these changes, we will build consensus for the longer-term reform needed to create a sustainable national care service. We will explore how we best manage and support an ageing population; how integration with the NHS can be secured; how to best support working age disabled adults; and how to move to a more preventative system.”
Fair pay agreement not costed
Labour said its proposed fair pay agreement would set “fair pay, terms and conditions, along with training standards” for adult social care staff.
However, there was no reference to the investment required to bring this about in the costings section of the party’s manifesto, despite increases in minimum pay for care staff necessitating councils raising their fee rates for providers. The Local Government Association has calculated that the April 2024 rise in the national living wage, from £10.42 to £11.44 an hour, would cost councils £1.6bn in commissioned adult social care costs during 2024-25.
Labour’s manifesto made no mention of the party introducing the current government’s planned reforms to the adult social care charging system, including a £86,000 cap on people’s lifetime liabilities for personal care and an increase, from £23,250 to £100,000, in the savings threshold above which people are ineligible for council-funded care.
When quizzed about the issue on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on 14 June, shadow health and social care secretary Wes Streeting indicated the party would implement the reform in line with the current government’s planned start date of October 2025.
‘Next to no detail on social care’, warns think-tank
“Well, we’re not planning to change that at this stage,” he said. “We want to give the system certainty and stability as they plan for the post-election, if there is a Labour government.”
However, after the Conservatives also pledged to keep to the October 2025 date, think-tank the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) pointed out that the current government had allocated no funding for this, with the originally allocated resource having been ploughed into day-to-day council budgets.
The Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS) agreed that this meant the likelihood of the policy being implemented in October 2025 was “quite low”.
Commenting on the Labour manifesto, the IFS was also critical of the lack of detail on its plan for a national care service.
“The manifesto commits to major reforms in adult social care, but provides next to no detail on how or when these would be implemented, or what final form they would take. This includes a commitment to create a ‘national care service’ and to introduce a collective pay agreement in adult social care. With no specific funding set aside for these changes, paying for them would mean less for other services, unless taxes or borrowing were increased.”
Risk of further squeeze to ‘already strained budgets’
Fellow think-tanks the Health Foundation, King’s Fund and Nuffield Trust, issued similar criticisms of the lack of detail and costings for the party’s adults’ services plans.
“The promises on social care reform could best be described as a plan to come up with a plan,” said King’s Fund chief executive Sarah Woolnough. “The current social care system in England is not fit for purpose and many people’s needs go unmet, yet it is one of the most over-looked and ignored policy challenges in recent decades.
“Labour’s plan for a fair pay agreement for care workers would help attract more people to work in the sector, but unless that increase in pay is matched with commensurate increases in local government funding, it will further squeeze already strained care provider and local council budgets.”
For ADASS, director of policy and analysis Michael Chard issued a similar message.
“Neither Labour or the Conservatives have told us how they plan to stabilise and support adult social care currently or committed any new funding to it,” he said.
“Labour’s fair pay agreements provide hope for tackling poor pay and conditions for care workers, but again, lack the detail in terms of how they will be funded and timelines for delivery. Without any plans for how to meet immediate pressures, these future ambitions will worry those working and using in adult social care today.”
Labour’s children’s social care plans
“Every child should have a loving, secure home. Labour will work with local government to support children in care, including through kinship, foster care, and adoption, as well as strengthening regulation of the children’s social care sector.
“Sadly, too often we see families falling through the cracks of public services. Labour will improve data sharing across services, with a single unique identifier, to better support children and families.”
‘Missed opportunity’ to help children and families
As in adult social care, there was no funding allocated to children’s social services in the manifesto, while there was also a limited policy offering, which prompted criticism from the Children’s Charities Coalition, which comprises Action for Children, Barnardo’s, the Children’s Society, NCB and the NSPCC.
“There was little concrete commitment in the manifesto to help struggling families as early as possible and no plan to transform support for children in crisis,” it said. “The number of families in need of children’s social care support is growing and the number of children in care is at a record high. We think this is a missed opportunity which risks letting down the children and young people most in need of help.”
Fellow children’s charity Become was similarly critical of the major parties’ manifestos in general.
“Whilst it is welcome that children in care are mentioned in the Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrats’ manifestos, all parties fall significantly short of the reforms needed to address the huge challenges children’s social care is facing,” said CEO Katharine Sacks-Jones. “Without investment and a clear plan, the care system will remain in crisis and the experiences of care-experienced children and young people won’t improve.
Also commenting on the manifestos in general, Association of Directors of Children’s Services vice-president Rachael Wardell said: “First and foremost we need any new government to put in place a long-term plan for childhood to invest in children’s futures and to close the funding gap in children’s services so that services can meet children’s and families’ needs.”
“There are a number of areas in the system that must be addressed immediately, such as growing pressures in children’s social care and SEND services as well as the need to support children’s health and wellbeing, particularly their mental health,” she added.
What else has Labour pledged?
Other relevant measures for the sector put forward by Labour included introducing legal safeguards for children and young people around strip-searching. This issue came to prominence through the case of Child Q, a 15-year-old black girl strip-searched by police at her school in London in 2020 without the presence of an appropriate adult, actions which a review found were both traumatic and harmful for her and likely to be influenced by racism.
Labour also pledged various measures to prevent young people being drawn into crime, including introducing an offence of criminal exploitation of children, setting up a network of youth hubs, including mental health and youth workers, and mandating referral of those caught carrying knives to youth offending teams.