By Adam McCulloch on November 24, 2009 11:04 AM | 1 Comment | No TrackBacks

by Peter Beresford

On the day the Queen's Speech announced free personal care for service users who are deemed as having high level needs, another no less significant announcement was being made at a big national conference in Bristol convened by the National Development Team for Inclusion.

Alexandra Norrish, the green paper team lead, reported that, to date, there had been 28,500 responses to the green paper consultation. This, she stated, was the "largest ever response on social care".

So it looks as though the government may have got the big public debate on social care it wanted. We can also add to that the 20,000-plus signatures on the prime minister's website strongly opposing the green paper proposal to divert money from universal benefits (in particular attendance allowance) to help fund discretionary social care.

However, in the topsy-turvy world of politics, the government has already been working for some time on the white paper that's meant to follow from, and have listened to, this consultation.

This was also the green paper which "ruled out" future social care paid for out of general taxation. Yet, first, the prime minister in September, and then the Conservative opposition in October, introduced proposals for free social care.

These clearly cut across the three green paper options to which we were meant to confine ourselves. So we are in a situation whereby 28,500 individuals and organisations have responded to options that are already effectively obsolete.

We don't have details about how the Queen's Speech proposal on free personal care is to be paid for. What we do know is that it will have significant cost implications and in one way or another funding will have to be found from general taxation.

Events, politics and a forthcoming general election all seem to have overtaken Shaping The
Future Of Care Together and its public consultation. How now can we regard the green paper as anything other than a dead parrot? A much bigger, more inclusive and meaningful debate about the future of social care is still needed. That is something that is really only going to happen after, not before, the general election.

What still has to be found is the funding basis for a sustainable system of social care for future generations. If this green paper experience proves anything, that's not a task that can be safely left to politicians.

Peter Beresford is professor of social policy at Brunel University and campaigns for service user involvement
[Submitted by ians1]