Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee launches inquiry into long-term funding of adult social care following Covid-19 pandemic

Finding long-term solution to financial pressures on adult social care system is 'one of the toughest questions we will have to face in the coming years', says Committee Chair

The Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee has launched an inquiry to investigate how Covid-19 has impacted the adult social care sector and its long-term funding needs following the pandemic.

Highlighting that the pandemic has placed additional pressures on adult social care - with costs increasing due to additional PPE, cleaning and staff costs, while a fall in demand for services threatens to put providers out of business - the Committee says that it would welcome submissions focussing on the following questions -

• How has Covid-19 changed the landscape for long-term funding reform of the adult social care sector?
• How should additional funds for the adult social care sector be raised?
• How can the adult social care market be stabilised?
• How can the adult social care market be incentivised to compete on quality and/or innovation?

Launching the inquiry, Committee Chair Clive Betts said -

'The challenge of finding a long-term solution to the financial pressures on the adult social care system is one of the toughest questions we will have to face in the coming years. We have seen year on year the demand on services increasing, while local authority budgets have been stretched more and more. The government has attempted to address this spasmodically with one-off pots of funding for the most critical needs, but it is clear that we must have a solution that provides a financial plan for decades, not just months. Unless the funding of social care is resolved there will continue to be more cuts to other council services and this is simply not sustainable.

Our new inquiry sets out to understand how Covid-19 has placed further stress on an already challenging environment, and the likely long-term consequences for adult social care. Given the likely long-term financial implications of the pandemic on society as a whole, we will also reconsider how we can provide the necessary funding boost fairly and look at how we can support the sector to innovate in how it provides care.'

NB - the deadline for submissions to the inquiry is 15 April 2021.

For more information, see New inquiry: Long-term funding of adult social care from parliament.uk