Last Thursday the GLI opposition group did their level best to convince the Conservative administration to amend their budget for 2022-3: concentrating on the two most pressing needs for Suffolk residents, fuel poverty and social care , and funding our proposals by adding an extra 1% to the social care precept.
As opposition spokesperson on adult social care, I seconded the motion, saying to the administration:
“You have often had little sympathy from me in the past – but you have it now. It is not easy to plan and budget in times of such uncertainty. However – where the care element of this budget comes – you may have my sympathy but not my understanding.
I can wish for many things to have never happened: some events outside our control, some decisions this council made, and some made elsewhere – all of which have had unintended consequences.
Because they did, we have crisis in social care. This crisis ripples into every area of our community from overworked professional carers, to unpaid carers, with no choice but to step up to the plate when professional care collapses, and, above all, those who have no choice but to require care.
All of these, and their worried, their dependent families are caught up in this pervasive problem – some clinging on by their fingertips– a situation that a further government-sanctioned 1% increase in the social care precept will do much to ameliorate.
We simply don’t have enough carers in Suffolk. If we don’t add to the precept, we’ll still need to recruit them. Either by taking the money from elsewhere– or by overspending. It’s that stark. Because otherwise we will have even fewer carers – and this will impact on those who remain: professional carers working so hard that they spend any day off asleep – and still paid so little that surely they too will regretfully recognise they can earn equal pay in other less stressful jobs.
Nationally there are over 100,000 care vacancies: last year more than 40,000 care workers left the sector.
A new visa scheme will let employers sponsor Care Assistants, Care Workers, Carers as long as they pay at least £10.10 an hour. Currently, in Suffolk, a Carer gets under £9. See the problem?
We have a crisis in Suffolk. We live amongst carer heroes who we celebrate with badges and reward with respect. But respect comes cheap. It doesn’t feed your children or warm your home.
Colleagues, we decided that the Budget required no Equality Impact Assessment. Why was this? Women use council services much more than men, women are predominantly society’s unpaid carers, and the proposal NOT to increase the precept by 1% will disproportionately affect women and those they care for.
And with the double whammy of Covid and carer shortage, the situation of the aged caring for the aged has got markedly worse over the last months with no sign of improvement: I live between two sets of hero carer neighbours who continue to manage when managing seems almost impossible. The two households rack up 100 years of marriage between them as they wait for appropriate assistance for their care needs. Yet sex and age are two of the protected characteristics that an EIA should examine.
Care should not be political: it will take anyone under its wing. It knows no boundaries. It affects us all: whether parent, grandparent, child.
Adding 1% to the social care precept will add £9.31 annually to a band A home – rising to £27.94 for the top-rated band. At a time when many employed carers are using foodbanks. I don’t want to say this is a small sum of money.
But if we agree it, maybe they would earn enough not to need foodbanks, and the pressure on proud independent people like my neighbours would lessen.
And so, this amendment is not made for political gain or to score political points, but hopes to guide our moral judgment, proving that we are what we say we are –a Council that cares, a Council that can, and a Council that will.
Colleagues I urge you to support this amendment.”
Unfortunately our amendment was voted down by an administration who completely fail to understand that paid carers, unpaid carers and the those who have no choice but to require care are not a different species to “hard pressed tax payers”
We need greater diversity in our council chamber!
