Balancing adult social care: Rising costs, funding gaps, and the path forward

ADASS President, Melanie Williams reflects on the impact of the Autumn Budget on adult social care and the wider community sector.

This Government promised to be holding the door ajar for us in Adult Social Care – a Secretary of State who actively talks about Social Care, a new Minister promising a National Care Service, and strong engagement opportunities in the NHS ten-year plan. 

Whilst there are still no plans for Adult Social Care reform, it’s been heartening to hear how the social care plan will run alongside the health ten-year plan, that adult social care will be part of the neighbourhood health vision, and the Fair Pay Agreements process is beginning.  

This gave me cause for hope and optimism in a context where we are facing enormous financial pressure as shown in our latest survey. Our collective overspends of over half a billion pounds and many Councils are using short-term measures to fund the increasing cost of care. Directors also modelled savings of £1.4bn in 2025/26 to their adult social care budgets prior to the Budget announcement. 

What is driving the increase we are seeing to the cost of care? 

• More people with increasingly complex needs requiring support across all ages but increases in the number of working age adults 

• Inflation increasing the cost of care 

• Rising costs in supporting people with health needs pressuring local partnerships and budgets 

• Increasingly specialist solutions for people when leaving hospital 

Then the October Budget, which materially increased the cost of providing care and support, through the NICs shift and National Living Wage (NLW) increase.  This increase is being faced across the sector, by councils, care providers and voluntary, community, faith and social enterprises (VCFSE)  will be greatly impacted too.  So, while we welcomed the announcement of £600mn additional funding, which along with the social care precept, will provide up to 1.2bn for next year (25/26), this is still significantly less than is required to fund the announcements on NLW and employers NI. 

Funding gap looms large 

In the last few weeks sector leaders and people with lived experience have come together to discuss the future of adult social care, on how we can coproduce, partner, and create personalised care that enables people to live good lives. We’ve had good conversations with DHSC colleagues around Neighbourhood Health and the views within social care about the 10-year health plan.  But sadly, the funding gap looms large in our minds and it’s hard to consider the medium term when today seems so impossible.  This is forcing us into short-term action and giving very little space to consider the action we need to reform care and support. 

Finding solutions 

We do need Government to urgently review the impact of the Budget on adult social care and the wider community sector. These are not financial challenges that any place can resolve alone. We also need DHSC to instigate a national review of higher cost support delivered across CHC, joint funded and adult social care provision to better understand and plan for the cross-sector rising costs.  

ADASS have prepared a set of calculations that look at the impact of the Budget on state-funded adult social care. We’ve written to the Minister for Care, Minster for Local Government, and Chief Secretary to the Treasury raising the concerns we have and asking for urgent work to agree how we will meet the increasing cost of care, so we can develop quality care and support that has the principles of a National Care Service linked to neighbourhood health, at its heart.