Labour’s first months in office have not landed well among social workers, a Community Care poll has found.
Since taking power in July, the party has cancelled a planned cap on care costs and ditched the adult social care training and development fund proposed by its Conservative predecessor, cutting funding for 2024-25 in this area by £115m.
As part of this, it scrapped the second round of the adult social work apprenticeship fund, which would have enabled English councils to recruit around 130 social work apprentices in 2024-25.
However, Labour has also announced several reforms, including a long-awaited update to the Mental Health Act 1983, the Children’s Wellbeing Bill, which is designed to strengthen child protection, and the Employment Rights Bill, which would improve pay and working conditions for adult social care staff. How these improvements will be funded remains unclear for now.
Only 3% said the party was taking “promising steps” despite making cuts, while about a third (34%) felt it was too early to tell.
What is your opinion of Labour’s treatment of social care so far?
Celebrate those who've inspired you
For our 50th anniversary, we're expanding our My Brilliant Colleague series to include anyone who has inspired you in your career – whether current or former colleagues, managers, students, lecturers, mentors or prominent past or present sector figures whom you have admired from afar.Nominate your colleague or social work inspiration by either:
- Filling in our nominations form with a letter or a few paragraphs (100-250 words) explaining how and why the person has inspired you.
- Or sending a voice note of up to 90 seconds to +447887865218, including your and the nominee’s names and roles.
