Treasury is budgeting for social care without knowing what the law requires
Legal rights charity Access Social Care has asked the Treasury to review how it calculates adult social care funding in line with its legal obligations (Alamy)
4 min read
There’s been a significant focus on Andy Burnham’s proposed universal care system in recent days and it’s positive to see social care receive the attention it needs. However, with the plans not progressing until after the next election, we must not lose track of the here and now.
In a few weeks' time, the new chancellor will confirm how much money councils in England will receive and therefore how much they will have to spend on adult social care. Ahead of that decision, Access Social Care has made a formal submission to the Treasury asking it to change the way it reaches the figure.
Our argument rests on something most people would assume already happens. Before deciding what funding social care needs, the government should work out what the law requires councils to provide. However, it seems it doesn’t and hasn't, for years.
The government has admitted historically social care has been underfunded. And yet, the calculation begins with what was spent last year, adjusts it for inflation, wages and an ageing population, and treats the result as what councils need.
Imagine setting a family’s food budget by looking back at a week when they could only afford one meal a day. They got by on £20, so £20 must be enough. Nobody asks whether they went to bed hungry or whether the money they had was sufficient to meet their needs.
That is the risk when past spending becomes the baseline. Wherever councils are already falling short of what people are legally entitled to, the shortfall is carried into next year’s settlement, and the one after that. And as a result, disabled and older people cannot access the social care they have a right to. That's partly why social care provision in this country is facing such huge challenges.
The duty of councils is not in doubt. Parliament passed the Care Act in 2014 with support from all parties. It gives people a legal right to have basic needs met, such as help with eating, washing, dressing or staying safe at home. That duty is mandatory. Councils being short on money doesn't remove it.
Yet in the spending review process, meeting these needs that currently go unmet is treated as a 'policy pressure', outside the assessment of what councils need to spend. The National Audit Office described this approach in its February 2025 report on local government finances. The effect is that a legal duty has to compete with every other department’s bids for extra money. Sometimes it loses.
To put it simply, this is not the usual pre-Budget pitch for funding. This is about the government meeting a legal obligation. Failure to meet it has real-world implications which we see every day.
For nearly 40 years, Lizzie* has received around-the-clock care from her mother, stepfather and 85-year-old grandmother. Lizzie has a rare chromosome disorder which affects her physically as an adult and requires constant supervision to stay safe.
Yet, when the exhausted family finally asked their local authority for a 24/7 residential placement, the council only offered a shared house with just 3 hours of daily 1:1 support. This plan meant that Lizzie would be mostly alone for 21 hours a day.
When the family protested, they were met with resistance. Exhausted and facing a brick wall, the family reached out to Access Social Care. A caseworker drafted a rigorous, legally grounded letter to the local authority and the impact was instant. The local authority completely dropped their resistance, appointed an 'Autism Champion' social worker, and approved a safe care package starting with one-to-one support.
As a charity, we have spent five years fighting for information about social care funding to be made public. If this was already in the public domain, changes could have been made sooner to contribute to better social care both today and for future generations.
Our submission to the Treasury is very clear. We've asked that social care funding be based on the cost of meeting people’s legal entitlements, including needs that are going unmet today, rather than the cost of keeping services as they are.
The Care Act was a promise that help with the basics of daily life would not depend on the state of the public finances. Twelve years on, the Budget is a chance to fund it on the terms the law requires.
At Access Social Care, we are energised and excited by this government’s momentum on social care, and we agree that now is the time to fix the foundations of social care for future generations. Transparency on social care funding calculations is part of the critical infrastructure that will deliver change and prevent future waiting lists for access to care. If government is serious about a universal national care service, then funding calculations should be published.
Kari Gerstheimer is CEO and founder of Access Social Care
* Name has been changed to protect anonymity
