News

Adult social care

Liam Byrne became MP for Birmingham Hodge Hill last July, aged 33 and with a city slicker’s CV encompassing management consultancy and banking.

As community care minister he will lead the biggest reform of adult social care in a generation, with a white paper due this autumn to follow March’s green paper.

Byrne is an associate fellow at think-tank the Social Market Foundation, and his published papers betray a Blairite commitment to public service modernisation through private sector involvement and consumer choice.

But will he be able to put public sector reform into practice or get to grips with the social care brief?

Byrne seems to have recognised he is on a learning curve. He has already made contact with the Association of Directors of Social Services and has spoken to Commission for Social Care Inspection chief inspector David Behan.

The charm offensive has been well received. CSCI chair Dame Denise Platt says: "I think it’s fantastic to be working with someone who’s excited about the portfolio. We’ve picked up a genuine enthusiasm from him."

Few seem worried by his inexperience. John Knight, head of policy at disability care charity Leonard Cheshire, says: "Some people may think there’s a danger in that. I’m comforted by the fact that there are able officials in the position to support Liam."

This is particularly important given that his predecessor, Stephen Ladyman, is so closely associated with the green paper reforms and displayed a powerful commitment to the sector.

The green paper is not the only item in Byrne’s in-tray.

Platt wants an early indication that he will pursue Ladyman’s commitment to reviewing the national minimum standards for care providers, which the CSCI views as a brake on its plans for user-focused regulation.

The government’s decision to leave social care as the responsibility of a parliamentary under-secretary – the lowest rung of the ministerial ladder – is testament to its low status.

However, Byrne may be working under a more pro-social care regime than Ladyman, given Patricia Hewitt’s appointment as health secretary, replacing John Reid.

Reid failed to develop a relationship with the sector during his two years in charge, leaving it to Ladyman. And many echo the view expressed by one commentator that "Hewitt has a better grasp of social care than John Reid did".

Disabilities

Changes have also been afoot at the Department for Work and Pensions, notably with the return of David Blunkett to the cabinet, but also with Maria Eagle’s replacement, Anne McGuire, as disability minister.

Disability charities are ambivalent about the government’s programme for disabled people.

The prime minister’s strategy unit paper, Improving the Life Chances of Disabled People, was warmly received with its promise of empowerment through personalised budgets.

But the government’s plans to reform incapacity benefit, which looks set to be included in a welfare reform green paper next month, have raised concerns.

Knight says Alan Johnson, during his brief tenure as work

and pensions secretary, thrashed out a compromise between the government’s desire to get more people into work and the needs of disabled people.

This involved plans to give more money to severely disabled people, through a new disability and sickness allowance and financial incentives for other incapacity benefit recipients to seek work.

However, since his appointment Blunkett has hinted that the government may be looking to adopt a tougher line.

Knight warns: "My strong advice to Blunkett is to concentrate on pensions. Johnson did a superb job in coming up with a workable solution on incapacity benefit. We know [Blunkett’s] a tough politician. He doesn’t need to use disabled people to demonstrate that."

But Knight suggests that the government, with a majority slashed to 67 seats, will struggle to force through draconian reforms.

Mental health

The last parliamentary session closed with a critical report on the draft Mental Health Bill by the committee set up to scrutinise it, which warned many people could be forced into treatment unnecessarily.

Crucially, it called on the government to introduce two pieces of legislation: a public protection bill covering the minority of mental health patients with untreatable personality disorders; and a broader therapeutically oriented bill.

A spokesperson at the Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health, says: "One of the key signals will be whether they have taken this on board."

He adds: "They’ve done the right thing in setting up that committee and the logical conclusion would be to take on board a lot of what was in that report and come up with laws that can garner more consensus."

Rosie Winterton will hang on to the mental health brief as a minister of state at the DoH, something the Sainsbury Centre commends.

Homelessness

Housing is destined to be a strong theme in Labour’s third term but there remain fears that the government’s emphasis on increasing home ownership will come at the expense of investment in social housing.

It is unclear what the effect will be of plans to increase social home-building by 50 per cent yet give housing association tenants the right to buy up to 75 per cent of their homes.

Resolving this tension will be a key task for housing minister Yvette Cooper, who has been promoted to minister of state from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister.

Shelter director Adam Sampson says: "We hope this new team will resolve that in favour of [increased social housing], which surely must be a more pressing social problem."

Labour’s manifesto failed to mention homelessness, despite a pledge in the government’s five-year housing plan to halve the number of people in temporary accommodation by 2010 and evidence of a 123 per cent increase in homelessness since 1997.

Sampson warns: "A strategy to help those in greatest need is at least as important as a commitment to get people on to the property ladder."

Despite the changes, this tension between helping those in need and the concerns of Middle England looks set to manifest itself again in Labour’s third term.