Charities are likely to receive hundreds of millions of pounds more funding following an announcement of £2bn of extra funding for social care in the UK.
Chancellor Philip Hammond promised an additional £2bn of funding for social care over the next three years in today’s budget announcement, following extensive campaigning by many groups in the charity sector.
Sector infrastructure organisations have estimated that charities receive around 15 to 20 per cent of all social care funding in the UK. The total adult social care market was worth £17.2bn in 2013/14, with children’s social care worth several billion more.
Social care organisations had government income of around £4.8bn in 2013/14. These organisations provide other services as well, so this is likely to correspond to around 15 to 20 per cent of the market. A TUC briefing also puts the value of charitable delivery at around 15 per cent.
So if the £2bn social care budget is spent proportionately to existing funding, charities could be in line for an additional £300m.
However this extra funding is only likely to make up for a portion of the cuts the sector has faced in recent years. Social care funding has been reduced by £4.6bn from its peak, with sector bodies receiving around £500m a year less from government, in real terms, compared to the year to March 2009.
And campaigning charities have estimated that £1.5bn is needed just this year to meet the funding shortfall.
In addition it is far from certain that charities will receive a proportionate amount of the increase. Sector bodies have expressed concerns that charities may find themselves locked out of commissioning processes as councils continue to aggregate contracts.
And social care charities have also been hit by the need to pay the national living wage. Most charities were paying less than this amount and are able to afford less staff as a result.
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