A leading statistician has questioned the feasibility of proposals to align social care funding with healthcare, warning the costs could exceed £18 billion and implementation could take decades. The expert expressed skepticism about claims of making social care entirely free, noting that even Scotland’s "free personal care" policy leaves significant financial burdens for residential care. With further details expected in the prime minister’s upcoming speech, concerns remain over funding clarity and the practical timeline for reforms. Meanwhile, separate financial uncertainties persist, including unresolved funding gaps in defence spending despite recent resignations over fiscal commitments.
Statistician Andrew Dilnot says that putting social care on the same footing as health care would cost ‘well in excess of £18bn’Andy Burnham’s plans to reform social care could cost far more than he is claiming and take “many decades” to be implemented, a leading expert has claimed.Andrew Dilnot told the Today programme this morning that he was “puzzled” by some of what Burnham said yesterday, and he implied that he was unconvinced by what Burnham was offering.[Burnham] did talk about making social care free, and what he implied was that he wanted social care to be completely free.And that’s not at all the case in Scotland, where although the policy is called free personal care, we still have exactly the problem that Mr Burnham himself has talked about of people needing residential care faced with very substantial bills.It sounds as though there’ll be some more details [of the plans] in the prime minister’s speech tomorrow at his party conference, but I think even that will continue to remain vague.I think what we learned yesterday was that, if anything, change is now further away than had been implied or suggested.I also think that there was an indication in what [Burnham] said that he’s imagining something that could take many years, even many decades before it came to fruition.So they are now, I suspect, looking at ways of beginning a move in this direction without imagining they can get there very quickly.These are more reheated announcements without clarity on where the money is coming from. Additional docks were announced months ago in the defence investment plan, which still has a £4.7bn black hole.John Healey resigned warning that Labour’s failure to fund defence was making Britain unsafe. Now that he is chancellor, he still won’t fund the 3% target he walked out over. Continue reading...
