The Health and Social Care Committee calls for timelines for Better Care Fund planning
The Health and Social Care Committee has written to the Secretary of State, Wes Streeting, following the Government’s publication of its response to the Committee’s ‘Adult Social Care Reform: the cost of inaction’ report.
The report, published on 5 May 2025, argued that “time and again, governments have stepped back from reform when faced with the cost”.
It said “too much emphasis is put on the cost of change and not enough consideration is given to the human and financial cost of no or incremental change. Without quantifying this cost, we believe decision makers, and the Treasury, fail to see how reform can enable positive outcomes and provide value for money, rather than be a drain on otherwise stretched resources.”
The committee was grateful to receive the Government’s response to its report, which contained the Government’s reaction to the committee’s recommendations, but it has written back to the Government to request clarity and further detail on a number of questions.
The committee’s letter states ‘having rejected the committee’s recommendations to commission research to quantify the cost of inaction, how confident is the Government that it can build a long-term case for reform amongst the public and politicians that ensures the success of any reform recommended by Baroness Casey, without such research?’
The Government’s response to the MPs’ report committed to setting out the approach to the Better Care Fund for 2026 and beyond “in due course”. The MPs’ letter asks DHSC to provide a specific deadline by which the committee can expect to see this work completed.
The letter also asks the department to provide a specific deadline by which the committee can expect to see work on the Better Care Fund completed and to confirm whether the Government has rejected the committee’s recommendations to collect data about care workers receiving Universal Credit and to publish an assessment of unmet need.
The Committee’s letter addresses the question of local government funding, asking the Government to set out what impact it expects proposed changes, such as the recently launched consultation on the Fair Funding Review 2.0, will have on local authorities’ adult social care budgets.
Acting Chair of the Health and Social Care Committee, Paulette Hamilton MP, said: “Our Committee’s report found that the lack of action on social care has been costing individuals, local authorities, the NHS, and the economy. We called on the Government to fully consider the human and financial costs of inaction.
“I am grateful for the Government’s response to our report but have written back to the Secretary of State to request clarity on a number of points which we feel have not been fully addressed and to seek confirmation on whether the Government has in fact accepted or rejected some of our recommendations.
“The Government’s response to our report in many cases defers decisions and actions on our recommendations to Casey. We look forward to the Casey Commission setting out its proposals for reform and emphasise that it is vital that we see concrete reform coming out of the Commission that actually improves the current state of affairs on social care.”
