Social Services - Achievement and Challenge

1.1     Social services departments meet a wide variety of different social care needs. They support older people who are no longer able to care for themselves without help. They support people with physical or learning disabilities, and those with sensory impairment, to allow them to live as full a life as possible. They play a key role in the delivery of the spectrum of care needed by mentally ill people. They provide essential services to children who would otherwise be at risk of neglect or abuse. They have an important role bringing together the wider range of services, such as health and housing, on which their users also depend. And in their regulatory role they have provided protection to the most vulnerable.

1.2     The growth of those services since they were founded in modern form in 1971 has been substantial. The combination at the same time of increased family breakdown, an increasing tendency for the extended family to be widely spread, and a rise in the population of older dependent people, has led to sharp increases in demand. Over a relatively short period, social services have emerged to become the fourth arm of the Welfare State.

1.3     This expansion of role is illustrated by the trend in the expenditure for which social services departments for England and Wales are responsible. In 1971-72 they spent just under £2 billion of public money at present price levels. In 1996-97 they are expected to spend over £8.4 billion - a four fold increase. In addition social security expenditure supporting elderly and other vulnerable people in residential and nursing homes, a responsibility which is being progressively transferred to social services, is still running at about £1.75 billion. As this transfer of responsibility is completed the budgets of social services departments will continue to rise. The social security programme continues to provide support on a large scale to many vulnerable people: expenditure on the main disability and carer benefits has trebled since 1990-91 and now stands for Great Britain at £7.5 billion.

1.4     Two recent legislative changes have affected the work of social services:

• the NHS and Community Care Act 1990 paved the way for the major transfer of responsibility from social security to social services; and

• the Children Act 1989 provided a new framework for the care of children.

There have also been significant changes in the regulatory responsibilities of social services, and for example in the juvenile justice services to which they make a large contribution.

1.5     Against this background of fast-moving social and legislative change, social services departments have many major achievements to their credit. Their work often involves difficult judgements particularly in the children's field. Much is done to high standards but all too often it is brought to public notice only when things go wrong.

1.6     The Government believes that their work is and will remain an essential part of the Welfare State. The Government also believes that their growing size and the increasing public awareness of their work makes necessary a reassessment of the roles and structures of departments which were originally established in very different circumstances. The Government considers that there are some aspects in particular of the work of social services departments which need to be reviewed:

1. Much of their work with adults is still based on powers first taken in the National Assistance Act 1948. The Government believes that the statutory basis for all their work should be modernised to provide a clear framework for delivering services which will enable them to determine sensible priorities within the overall local government spending levels set by Parliament and the social services budgets set locally. The Government will equally ensure that the relative roles of social services and social security, including housing benefit, remain clear.

2. Social services departments currently combine three responsibilities which sit uneasily together:
   • they assess care needs and use public money to commission care;

   • they operate as care providers; and

   • they regulate care provision in the private and voluntary sectors.

   The Government believes that these three functions should be separated clearly from each other.

3. The accountability framework for social services does not provide local authority members and managers or the public with sufficient information to allow the quality, suitability and efficiency of social services to be properly monitored and assessed. The Government believes that Parliament should establish such a framework.

4. The arrangements for the transfer of responsibility from social security to social services starting in 1993 make provision in England for 85% of the transferred budget to be used to commission care from the independent sectors. These arrangements were explicitly transitional. The Government believes that permanent arrangements are now needed to focus the social service department's role on assessment and commissioning and to promote the development of the independent sector in providing care in care homes and domiciliary services.

5. The community care arrangements also included the Direction on Choice which gave force to the Government's view that users should have an effective voice in determining how and where their care needs are met. This policy is being taken further forward by the Community Care (Direct Payments) Act 1996 which will enable many disabled people to choose and manage their own care. The Government believes that social services legislation needs to consolidate and extend this important principle.

6. Using powers in the Children Act 1989 the Government required social services departments to prepare Children's Services Plans identifying priority areas for the protection and support of children in their own field of responsibilities and in those of other services. The Government believes that this is too narrowly based and that the requirement should be refocused at the local authority collectively and involve the full participation of all the other public agencies able to detect and react to warning signals from potential problem families.

7. The delivery of social care to children often requires particularly difficult judgments. The Government proposes to work towards an extra training commitment for those who undertake it.

8. Regulation of social care should be conducted in close conjunction with the regulation of health care for the same clientele. The Government proposes a new regulatory framework which will improve safeguards to vulnerable people and will encourage more flexibility, innovation and cost effectiveness in the development of care.

1.7     As well as addressing these key structural issues, the Government believes that it is important to set out clearly the role which social services should be expected to fulfil in modern society. In the Government's view the guiding principles are simply stated:

1. Social care is the care which the very large majority of people are able to provide for themselves or for their family, friends and neighbours. The principal responsibility for social care rests on individual members of society and society's own networks of mutual support. It believes that responsible individuals should plan to meet their own needs, and that every encouragement should be given to family and friends who are willing to act as carers of those who are unable to provide for themselves.

2. The role of statutory social services is to act as a support to those who are meeting social care needs in these ways, and as a commissioner of care to support those for whom these networks fail. Statutory social services have been and should remain a service whose resources are targeted at those whose needs cannot be met through these networks. They include the highly dependent and vulnerable and those who are socially isolated.

3. High quality social care requires dedicated professional staff. It is important that proper training is provided to those who undertake this work and that the structures within which they work are not allowed to become isolated from the rest of the community. The Government believes that it is important that both the training of social workers and the accountability framework of social services departments must ensure that professional attitudes reflect the values of society generally.

1.8     This White Paper sets out how the Government intends to address these issues. After full consultation on the details the Government will introduce a Social Services Reform Bill as soon as the timetable of the next Parliament allows. This Bill will set out a new statutory framework reflecting the value of the role which social services departments now fulfil. It will set the foundations in place for the next 25 years of this important public service.