The narrative isn’t matched by action: 2025 Spring Survey reflections

Following the launch of our 2025 Spring Survey, ADASS Director of Policy and Analysis, Michael Chard, reflects on the growing disconnect between the Government’s rhetoric and reality.

Today’s survey is my eighth since I joined ADASS. Some of the messages have remained consistent over the years, whilst the survey has adapted and grown to mirror those things that matter to Directors and their staff, people with lived experience and Government. The survey provides us with an annual temperature check for adult social care. 

My main reflection from our 2025 survey is that the Government’s narrative on adult social care isn’t matched by actions. The recent Fair Funding consultation stated ‘Adult social care is a vital statutory service, a key responsibility for local authorities, and the largest area of local authority expenditure. It is key to the Government’s missions to build an NHS fit for the future, to shift care from hospitals to communities, and from treatment to prevention’. 

The ongoing and intensifying financial pressures on adult social care budgets – and local government resources more broadly, has an impact on the ability of councils to play a full, equal and effective part in reforms such as the three big shifts around neighbourhood health and care. Directors are rightly having to channel resources towards those of us with the greatest level of need, which consequently means that difficult decisions are having to be made to reduce expenditure on largely community-based support that would otherwise be focused on prevention and early intervention. Our survey found that Directors have had to reduce preventative spending to the lowest proportion of adult social care budgets since we started recording this data in 2017/18. 

Care markets, according to the data we’ve collected from Directors, have been more stable in the six months prior to April 2025 than compared to April 2024. In part, we think this can be attributed to the impact of international recruitment on the care workforce. However, looking forward, the impact of the Employer National insurance and National Living Wage increases, the Employment Rights Bill and the cessation of the international care visa are likely to lead to a less sustainable outlook for care providers.  This will likely be to the detriment of the choice and quality available to people with care and support needs. The ability of councils to fully fund the increased provider costs in 2025/26 and beyond looks doubtful because of the gap between available funding and increased costs, with Directors reporting only being able to offer a 5% increase on average provider fees for this financial year.   

The Chancellor recently announced the Spending Review for 2026/27 to 2028/29 and for adult social care, this included ‘an increase of over £4 billion of funding available for adult social care in 2028-29, compared to 2025-26’. From our analysis, the council tax and adult social care precept increases, if fully utilised by all councils, will provide approximately £3bn by the final year of the Spending Review, whilst the uplift to the NHS minimum contribution to the Better Care Fund will deliver £350-400mn in funding. This leaves, at best, around £600-650mn unallocated. If the Government is to deliver a Fair Pay Agreement in the final year of the Spending Review to support increased recruitment and retention, this funding is likely to fall short of bringing entry frontline care pay up to the Real Living Wage at a minimum. 

It doesn’t have to be this way. As the Health and Social Care Committee has stated ‘Adult social care must be seen as an enabler, not only in supporting people to live independent lives, but also in enabling health reform, preventing ill health, higher employment rates and growing the economy.’ 

Adult social care stands ready for reform, but the Government needs to create the conditions for success both in terms of delivering on their three shifts and in implementing recommendations from the independent Casey Commission into adult social care.