PM damned by his own words

A year of social care policy neglect

BORIS JOHNSON finds himself damned by his own words when it comes to social care

– and how Yorkshire councils are having to use emergency ‘reserves’ to prop up services as local government’s financial crisis escalates.

This is what the Prime Minister said on taking office exactly a year ago: “I am announcing now – on the steps of Downing Street – that we will fix the crisis in social care once and for all with a clear plan we have prepared...”

Now compare and contrast that pledge with the Government’s obfuscating response to

this week. Omitting to mention the PM’s so-called “plan”, a spokesman said cross-party talks will take place “at the earliest opportunity”.

When? Glib phrases like “earliest opportunity” are Whitehall-speak for ‘dither and delay’ – a polite description for the complacency of successive governments who have all had to make emergency funding available to prop up the care sector.

It can’t continue like this. Local authorities – and care providers – need longerterm funding guarantees to plan sufficient services for an ageing population.

Yet, while it can be argued that council ‘reserves’ are intended, in part, for emergencies like Covid-19, the subsidy of day-to-day services has never been their intended use.

And the Government’s hint at cross-party talks, a ruse to mask this major policy failure, is also questionable when Chancellor Rishi Sunak and Liz Kendall, the Shadow Care Minister, have already committed their respective parties in recent weeks to proceeding on this basis.

How? With no evidence of this process even beginning, just how bad does the crisis have to get, and how many elderly people have to be denied crucial care support, for anyone in the Government and/or Parliament to take the initiative and show the requisite leadership?