Care Provider Alliance (CPA) responds to Baroness Louise Casey appointed to head independent commission, to transform social care
Today, 3 January 2025, the Government has announced an independent commission into adult social care to be chaired by The Baroness Casey of Blackstock DBE CB; the aim is to inform government of the work needed to deliver a National Care Service.
Split over two phases, the commission will set out a vision for adult social care, with recommended measures and a roadmap for delivery.
The first phase, reporting in mid-2026, will identify the critical issues facing adult social care and set out recommendations for effective reform and improvement in the medium term.
It will recommend tangible, pragmatic solutions that can be implemented in a phased way to lay the foundations for a National Care Service. The recommendations of this phase will be aligned with the government’s spending plans which will be set out at the Spending Review in the spring.
The second phase, reporting by 2028, will make longer-term recommendations for the transformation of adult social care. It will build on the commission’s first phase to look at the model of care needed to address our ageing population, how services should be organised to deliver this, and how to best create a fair and affordable adult social care system for all.
Professor Vic Rayner OBE Chair of the Care Provider Alliance says:
“The announcement of the Casey Commission is a welcome step in the move towards developing a fully functioning National Care Service.
“It is hoped that Baroness Casey will be able to move quickly to engage those receiving care and support, their families, the care workforce, those providing and commissioning social care as well as the wider public.
“For this to be the once in a generation shift needed, then all political parties and wider partners need to start from an understanding that the findings of this review lay out a long-term blueprint for change.
“Social care matters to us all and this commission must lay to bed the prevarication and delay of both funding and reform that has bedevilled governments over too many years. With this in mind, the commission must move at a more rapid pace.
“We call on the commission to bring forward it’s timetable to allow for real change to happen within a two-year time frame.
“Work on the long term must not distract the government from the very real challenges facing social care right now. The CPA published detailed analysis in November 2024 outlining the critical pressures facing the sector, and it is essential that these issues are addressed now to ensure a sustainable social care sector exists for the future.”
The Baroness Casey of Blackstock DBE CB?–?Short Biography
Baroness Casey was made head of the Rough Sleepers’ Unit in 1999, where she successfully led the strategy to reduce the numbers of people living on the streets by two thirds. ?She went on to hold several leadership positions including the Director of the national Anti-Social Behaviour Unit, the Respect Task Force and the Troubled Families programme, as well as the UK’s first Victims’ Commissioner.
She left the civil service in 2017 to?establish the Institute for Global Homelessness, with the aim of delivering an international solution to homelessness across the world.?In 2020,?Baroness Casey?returned to public service to support the Government’s COVID-19 rough sleeping response and developed the “Everyone In” strategy.
Baroness Casey has led a series of high-profile reviews including the review into culture and standards in the Metropolitan Police and the Rotherham investigation.