The budget

We're going to be doing lots of coverage and analysis of the budget tomorrow, in terms of how it affects social work and social care.

Does anyone have any thoughts/predictions/hopes for what might be in it?

My first impressions are fairly positive

But more analysis to come, I'm sure

 

We have a news story up, highlighting the new social care apprenticeships, a scheme to get more young people into social care, and a blog post analysing them further.

Ok - I shall stop posting messages to myself now!

Well, what a budget, a sense of doom and gloom with borrowing that will take decades to pay off, oh what a legacy we leave for our children.   As for the apprentiseships for young people, in general I would say great, brilliant etc, BUT, social care apprenticesships for the under 25's?   I feel that the government have completely shot in the wrong direction. I know we dont know yet whether the money is for Social Work trainees or other areas of social care.   Social Work would have been much better served from funding which would have helped people with transferable skills, life experience, etc re-train from their recession hit industries.   There are a wealth of people out there who have gained a great deal of life experience, who have the temperament, aptitude and guts to come into social work with a realistic view of what is involved.

There are already many young people working in the social care sector and getting training, but they are already some of the lowest paid workers in our economy.   Will some employers see the traineeships as a chance to workers even cheaper?   I am sure this would not happen!!!!!

"community work" "community care sector" - I wonder how the government are using these terms in relation to the "traineeships"

Lots in the budget about helping the young - All very well, but unless the government urgently addresses the elderly care funding issue, any benefits the younger generation reap will be lost when they have to fork out to pay for their parents care. I quote from the Telegraph "Figures for The Daily Telegraph by Hargreaves Lansdown revealed that a typical Babygloomer will forego more than £100,000 of their own pension pot by helping their parents financially in retirement instead." With the elderly generation growing at such a vast rate and the care industry already tragically underfunded, I think the exclusion of elderly social care funding from the budget was shortsighted. And yes, encouraging the under 25's to become care workers would fill a gap, but how is this going to drive up perceptions of care workers and care generally? It concerns me that social care for the elderly could then be viewed as an underfunded sector staffed by an alternative yts scheme... http://www.yourcarehome.co.uk

• Filed under: social care, care homes, care, Budget, elderly

The continuing absence of any resolution of funding issues in social care for older people is inviting disaster. The Government seems to think that "doing nothing" means the issues will go away. In reality, they are getting more acute every week.

I dont spend much time thinking about the budget. As long as they keep bumping up the price on cigarettes thats fine. Mind you I did find the term "sin tax" very amusing.

Did anyone catch Newsnight last night - they were talking in really depressing terms about the state of the nation's finances and the budget and the cuts we are going to have to face - I wonder how much is journalists' hype and how much is reality?

I posted a blog a little earlier about this very subject - click here. In my view this is not hype, but a probable picture of the future, which is why social work needs to stand up for itself now more than ever.

 

I don't think too much of it is hype. The UK has a huge debt burden which will affect us for many years to come (considerable debate over how many, but everyone seems to agree at least 10).

The new euphemism for public service cuts is "efficiency savings". In reality this means less staff and the closure of some services, and probably yet more privatisation, which usually means lower paid staff and poorer quality services.

Social care services are in a position where even a stand-still in funding will effectively mean cuts, because of growing demand, especially from the steeply rising numbers of very elderly people.

 

I don't think it's hype.  I think we're in for a long haul, despite what Darling said in his budget speech about growth returning in the next year or so.  You can't keep printing and borrowing money without some kind of consequence.  You can't keep buying without actually producing anything to sell / you can't keep spending without earning.  More work for social services.  Less money to do it with.