Social care: an opportunity for politicians to improve their image?

by Simon Bottery, Director of Fundraising, Policy and Communications for Independent Age

Yesterday I was at the Liberal Democrat conference in Bournemouth for a fringe meeting on social care. Several charities are running these at all the party conferences as part of a bid to make social care a major issue at the next election. It will not be, of course, and most of the speakers seemed resigned to that. It will be health and education - it always is, said Helen Coombs from Ipsos Mori. It will be unemployment, said Baroness Barker, the Lib Dem health spokesperson in the Lords. Social care might just sneak onto the agenda if we work very hard, but if it does not then what happens given that no one can be bothered to put up even the flimsiest defence for the current system? Is it too much to hope that politicians might be prepared to put aside differences and reach a solution, a compromise if necessary, that carries all-party support? Baroness Barker said she hoped there could be an all party 'settlement'. Perhaps there would be few votes in it, but such a show of acting in the national interest would at least win some plaudits from a public with a rather jaded view of politicians. I can't help wondering, though, whether the need to cut public spending generally might mean that reform of social care returns to the back burner simply because there are unlikely to be any savings in it. Quite the opposite. With Help the Aged and Age Concern saying that another £1bn-£2bn needs to be invested but parties of all sides sharpening their knives it may be the worst possible timing to achieve reform.