The government is falling short on its promise to “fix the crises in social care”, an MPs’ committee has said.

The damning verdict comes in a report published by the Public Accounts Committee today.

Dame Meg Hillier MP, chair of the committee, said: “Years of fragmented funding and the absence of a clear roadmap has brought the adult social care sector to its knees. Waiting lists are rising, the sector is short tens of thousands of essential staff, and local authority finances are being placed under an unsustainable amount of pressure.”

The report calls for stronger leadership, long-term financial support and a clear workforce strategy to address key shortfalls in the adult social care sector.

It details how in April 2023 the government scaled back its committed to £5.4 billion funding on top of existing budgets over three years to £729 million over 2022-23 to 2024-25.

The MPs said the workforce plan set out to address the 152,000 shortfall in the sector was woefully insufficient and warned future reliance on overseas staff raised significant questions of the impact of proposed visa restrictions and risks of exploitation.

Reaction

Professor Martin Green, chief executive of Care England, said: “What the system needs is long-term, sustained root and branch reform and for the government to be held to account with measurable targets. It’s about time we stop letting the government get away with marking its own homework. This month’s Spring Budget made it clear adult social care is not high on the government’s agenda. Well, the gauntlet has been thrown by this report. We need accountability and responsibility to rise to the challenge.”

Indepenent Care Group chair Mike Padgham said: “We applaud the committee for setting out in such stark and uncompromising terms the way the government has continued with short-term, sticking plaster actions to try to support a s system that is failing and on the brink of collapse.

“But we wonder how many more of this type of report there will have to be before anyone in Westminster heeds the wake-up calls and takes some action.”

Caroline Abrahams,  charity director of Age UK, and co-chair of the CSA, said: “This new report from the Public Accounts Committee is hard-hitting but fair: it’s obvious to us that no proper plan exists to put the White Paper published two years ago into effect, and the end result is that millions of older and disabled people, and their un paid carers, are having to make the best of a system that is no longer fit for purpose. The Committee directs its criticisms towards the Department of Health and Care but in reality, the increasingly disastrous position in social care is due to decisions made not there but in No 10 and the Treasury.”

Saffron Cordery, deputy chief executive at NHS Providers, said: “Ahead of a general election, this report must be a wake-up call for the government – and indeed all political parties – to commit to a fully funded long-term workforce plan and a clear strategy to implement the 10-year vision for social care, which was published three years ago.”

Sam Monaghan, chief executive, MHA, said: “We agree with the Public Accounts Committee’s (PAC) sentiments that the government must support the adult social care sector with sustainable plans, rather than piecemeal funding. As PAC also points out, this must include a clear workforce strategy to address the thousands of vacancies in the sector.”

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “We are committed to reforming adult social care and have invested up to an additional £8.6 billion over two years to meet the pressures facing the sector, grow the workforce and improve hospital discharge.

“The report rightly acknowledges progress to boost care workers’ career progression and training to improve retention, including through a new accredited qualification.

“To drive forward our vision for reform, we are also investing up to £700 million on a major transformation of the adult social care system, which includes investing in technology and adapting people’s homes to allow them to live independently.”