#SocialCareFuture is a broad and inclusive alliance for change, with the leadership of people who draw on social care at our heart. We are animated by a shared vision for a future in which we can all ‘live in the place we call home with the people and things that we love, connected with one another, doing the things that matter to us.’ We work to promote investment in and reform of adult social care, and wider public services and support, so that people can find and draw on support when they need it to live this ‘gloriously ordinary life’.
Personal Independence Payment (PIP) is for many people central to being able to do so. By addressing the extra costs of living (and working) with a disability, Personal Independence Payment helps people to take part in our society and to exercise choice and control over their life. It will be therefore be catastrophic for an anticipated 800,000 disabled people and people with health conditions to either lose or not receive the daily living component of PIP in future who would do so under current rules. This impact will be amplified for others negatively affected by reforms to Universal Credit, or crucial support such as the Access to Work scheme. Given PIP also serves as a passport to other practical and financial support, such as Carers Allowance, council tax reduction, housing benefit premium and discounts, the cuts will ripple out across the range of support that people commonly draw on to live their lives. While the government’s plans to support more disabled people into paid employment are laudable, they will not be assisted in any way by cuts to PIP, which is not means tested and addresses barriers to work.
As a result, lives will shrink, people will become isolated and less able to participate in society, including in paid work. Their health and wellbeing will suffer. Meanwhile, people’s needs will not go away, and the cost of meeting them, or having failed to do so, will materialise in other areas of public services and spending, including already overstretched local council adult social care and NHS budgets. Given one in three children growing up in poverty today lives in a household with at least one disabled parent, the implications for child and intergenerational poverty are also stark.
As a movement, we pride ourselves in engaging constructively with national and local government and wherever possible in offering solutions. However, we are also a movement committed to the rights and wellbeing of all who have reason to draw on social care and as such we have red lines.
These cuts are a mistake that will cause incalculable harm and they are not ultimately in the public interest. This is why as a movement we are calling on the government to think again, and for MPs to robustly challenge these reforms.
Supported by:
The #SocialCareFuture conveners Dr Anna Severwright OBE, Andy McCabe, Tricia Nicoll, Julie Stansfield and Martin Routledge
Dr Clenton Farquharson (supporting in a personal capacity)
Hope Lightowler, Co-chair of the APPG for Adult Social Care
David Ashley, Executive Director, Independent Living Group
Pip Cannons, CEO, Community Catalysts
Aisling Duffy, CEO Certitude
Kate Terroni, Chief Executive, United Response
Liz Wilson, Partners in Policymaking
Matt Skinner, CEO Care City
Kari Gerstheimer, CEO, Access Social Care
Julie Stansfield CEO, In Control Partnerships
Frances Hasler, Independent Consultant on equality and independent living
Alice Osborne, Ageable
Sophie Erskine, Expert by Experience
Joanna Mawdsley, Expert by Experience
Benjamin P. Taylor, Managing Partner RedQuadrant & Chief Executive Public Service Transformation Academy
Karyn Fitzpatrick, Chief Executive, Keyring
Isaac Samuels OBE
If you would like to add your support to this statement please email socialcarefuture@gmail.com, providing us with your name, your role and where appropriate your organisation and logo.
