Mirage Policy?

I offered these thoughts at an event recently really to underpin 2 points 1. Let’s not wait for central govt to offer the answers or will all the means 2. We need to shift from only having a short term central focus to long term public facing work to create conditions for big change

We’ve had the Care Act since 2014. A broadly positive piece of policy that emerged from the most inclusive policy development process I’ve experienced (of course that bar is more high jump than pole vault) Sadly the CA was undermined by crushing cuts & has become defacto voluntary rather than required. It also possibly initiated a period that might be described as “mirage policy” It looks like the right stuff but there is no ￡, support or levers to drive it so it doesn’t happen.

More recently, years of promised Green Paper that didn’t emerge, lots of “sector” energy expended trying to influence something that didn’t happen, linked to a period of disruption at DHSC - institutional history lost, senior turn over, lack of senior government interest, pandemic. Then a rapid development of two White Papers & a Health & Social Care Levy. The reform WP, pace driven by senior politicians, was the least inclusive process I’ve seen tho ironically pace meant @tlap. had a chance to influence content. The integration WP was called “The secret white paper” by social care leaders not much engaged with its development & of course no engagement with…people. There was a fear of Health take over before this one. Both White Papers look distinctly Green. Ideas, modest pots of ￡. But no (written down) guiding vision, serious implementation plan etc. So not what most of us would really see as policy in the “doing something significant” sense.

The Levy - well we took a Chevvy there but for social care change it looks mostly dry (American Pie). Questions if ￡ will switch from Health, biggest part spent on cap etc which makes no difference at all to social care quantity or “quality” (a generally unhelpful term). (Of course the Spring Statement shifted from the idea of hypothecated tax with its raising of NI thresholds)

Simply no significant money realistically signalled that could support the key shifts to something better and more sustainable by investing “upstream” & releasing & supporting local mutual support & capacity etc. So we are really in a period of “mirage policy” which won’t in itself create any significant shifts in social care.

Looks like it’s up to us right now. Despair is not an option though because it’s about us, our families, friends, communities. And when you think about it why would we expect central govt policy to sort everything out? Having been in there 10 years myself I was often impressed by the hard work & dedication of the civil servants. But logically even in the best circumstances they only have a part to play. Our weird over centralised system perhaps leaves us all in a state of psychological dependence, waiting for the Godot of policy miracles. A better approach would be for us all to take responsibility for imagining & planning what a better future would look like. We can then ask folks at DHSC & Treasury for what they should offer, in a partnership relationship. Supportive ￡ context & elements of policy that help create conditions. Advocacy for people who draw on social care with other depts etc.

Neil Crowther had a go at starting to describe what this might look like here A long-term framework to transform social care? (socialcarefuture.blog)

Short term there are opportunities that current policy offers - the various pots of ￡ used effectively cld help us point to possibilities, we could start to build a different kind of partnership with policy folks. Let’s not kid ourselves about policy but let’s take opportunities