ADASS submission to the 2025 Spending Review

Good care and support makes a positive difference to many people, enabling them to live their lives in ways that matter to them. Yet the enormous contribution care and support makes to our lives as individuals and to us all, as a society, remains largely invisible and undervalued.

Submission summary

This Spending Review is an opportunity for Government to lay the foundations for fundamental reform of adult social care in the medium to long-term. This submission puts forward constructive and investable propositions which would be incremental steps on the road to reform. Our Early Priorities for Government document set out a range of actions the Government could take now including, but not limited to, reforming planning to raise accessibility standards for new homes, ensuring equitable access to data between health and social care and supporting councils, the workforce and people who draw on care and support to utilise technology. This submission builds on those proposals.

However, we cannot move forward without Government fully recognising the financial, workforce and care market challenges facing adult social care. While we acknowledge the challenging financial outlook set out by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) for the next few years, it’s clear that significant and immediate investment is required to enable adult social care to simply standstill. Without it we risk further deterioration of care and support, making the reform of adult social care more difficult in future years.

This submission sets out how and why adult social care must be a central pillar of the Government’s missions on growing the economy and an NHS fit for the future. It is crucial to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care’s three shifts for the NHS- from analogue to digital, hospital to community and sickness to prevention and realising the ambitions for the NHS 10-Year Plan.

If adult social care flourishes, it can help unlock the labour market, build business confidence to invest and enhance overall productivity and economic stability. Adult social care is a major local employer, and any expansion of social care means new businesses, new job opportunities, increased tax contributions and a significant net contribution to the local, regional and national economies. It is a growth sector.