Major Jewish charities within the adult social care industry have expressed alarm over Labour’s announcement of the creation of a commission to investigate and identify problems in the sector, accusing it of failing to address the urgent issues that exist.
Revealing their plans for the Casey Commission, Labour said it would be the first step to kickstarting long-term reform to the social care system and would inform the government of the work needed to deliver this.
The first phase of the commission, reporting in 2026, will draw on charity and organisational expertise within the industry to ascertain the critical issues facing adult social care and set out recommendations for reform, while the second phase, reporting by 2028, will make longer-term recommendations for the sector.
But the Professional Association for Social Work and Social Workers (BASW), the UK’s largest professional membership organisation for social work, said: “We do not need a new commission to tell us what we already know. The evidence of the challenges in adult social care and the solutions required has been available for decades. What the sector needs now is action, not another delay disguised as progress.”
Jewish charities involved in adult social care, whilst welcoming Labour’s promise to address the “significant challenges” facing the sector, have echoed similar sentiments, accusing Labour of providing little clarity in the long-term and failing to address problems in the short-term.
Norwood, one of the largest welfare organisations within Anglo-Jewry, said they were “concerned about the protracted timeline for further reviewing where the issues lie”.
Naomi Dickson, Norwood’s chief executive told the JC: “Social care providers such as Norwood are under more pressure than ever before, and the prospect of yet another distant report provides little clarity or direction for us as we look to pivot to ensure we can continue to provide quality care for the people we support in the immediate term.”
Norwood, which is already faced with meeting increased costs of up to £2 million a due to National Insurance rises announced in the Budget, added its voice “to calls from the sector for the commission to engage all stakeholders in swiftly developing decisive and purposeful recommendations” to realise the government’s intention of making lasting change.
Naomi Dickson, chief executive of Norwood
Jewish Care, the largest health and social care charity servicing the Jewish community in London and the southeast, said the current growing crisis in social care, with increasing costs for providers, was “currently unsustainable and has serious repercussions if this is not addressed.”
CEO Daniel Carmel-Brown said the proposed commission, if it successfully garnered cross-party support, could offer a “vehicle” for long-term change which avoided successive governments abandoning policies.
However, he added: “A plan for social care reform has been a concern for the whole sector and for wider society for many years. We had hoped to see the national consensus on the issue of long-term funding for social care and the provision of additional funding to local authorities for adult and children’s social care.”
Jewish Care CEO Daniel Carmel-Brown (Photo: Blake Ezra Photography)
Nightingale Hammerson, which runs two Jewish residential homes, said the government should recognise “that there are immediate and urgent issues that are widely and clearly evident, without further investigation, that should be addressed to support the sector whilst longer term plans are developed”.
Chief Executive Jenny Pattinson said: “The government should also urgently reconsider the increase to employer National Insurance contributions to charities such as Nightingale Hammerson. This ill-thought-through policy decision increases our staffing costs by £500,000.”
The Department of Health and Social Care has been approached for comment.
