Intelligent Leadership in Adult Social Care
About the Care Association Alliance
The Care Association Alliance brings together care associations from across England, including OACP, representing the full breadth of the adult social care sector:
- 50 local care associations covering all of England
- All major care sectors represented by 9,000 residential, nursing, home care and supported living
- One unified voice to Government, Parliament and The Casey Commission
Our campaign is supported by the
Rt Hon Damian Green MP, former First Secretary of State and de facto Deputy Prime Minister, who held direct responsibility for social care policy in Government.
The Settlement, October 2026
On 30 September the Health and Social Care Secretary, Yvette Cooper, used her keynote speech at the Labour Party Conference to announce three things for the adult social care workforce.
- a national collective pension scheme, which she described as the first of its kind for workers in the care sector
- a legally binding fair pay agreement, setting minimum standards of pay and conditions across every employer, backed by £500 million for the first settlement
- a dedicated workforce plan covering career progression, training and the development of specialist skills
The Settlement, September 2026
Two problems have been sitting next to each other for a year, and nobody has built the road between them. In the spring, the number of 16 to 24-year-olds not in education, employment or training passed one million for the first time since 2013. It has since edged back below that mark, to 981,000 in April to June, though that is still 30,000 higher than a year earlier.
Alan Milburn's interim review, published in May, called it a "generational fault line" and warned the figure could reach 1.25 million within five years, a rise from one in eight young people to one in six.
Paper 02 | Towards a National Workforce Settlement
Funding reform alone cannot succeed. This paper sets outwhat the workforce needs.
Our first paper argued that the financial risk of growing old and needing care is a national risk, and should be managed nationally. Nothing in that argument has changed.
But in the roundtables, commissioner conversations and official responses since, one theme has recurred more than any other. You can reform the money, but if you cannot recruit, keep and develop the people who deliver the care, the money will not translate into better outcomes.
The Settlement, July 2026
At the LGA's annual conference this week, Baroness Casey announced a national public "Big Conversation" on adult social care. Responding for councils, Cllr Dr Wendy Taylor MBE, chair of the LGA's Health and Wellbeing Committee, said local government is "essential to making adult social care reform work and stick" and called for "a new partnership between national government, local government and citizens."
The Handover | Intelligence for Leaders in Health & Social Care
Andy Burnham became Prime Minister on 20 July 2026, succeeding Keir Starmer. His own pledge, a National Care Service, free at the point of use, is not itself a costed policy.
Whether it's a direction of travel or a firm destination changes what it means for the sector.
Paper 01 | Adult Social Care Funding Reform
The case for reform is beyond dispute. The question is what reformlooks like.
This paper proposes a national funding settlement built on three core principles:
- national pooling of financial risk
- statutory entitlement triggered by assessed need, and
- local delivery within a national framework
The settlement has five principal components:
- a ring-fenced national care grant distributed to local authorities on a needs-adjusted formula
- a reformed means test with a substantially raised capital threshold combined with a lifetime cap on individual contributions
- a national tariff covering both residential and domiciliary care
- a bundled funding model for residential care with portable assessed packages, and
- a reformed Deferred Payment Agreement framework ensuring no individual is required to sell their home to fund residential care
The Settlement, June 2026
Our national family, the Care Association Alliance, has launched a coordinated campaign for a national funding settlement backed by Bridgehead Communications.
The campaign, underpinned by serious policy analysis, is making the case that the sector does not need its own version of the NHS. What it needs is a nationally coherent settlement: one that funds care at the true cost of provision, decides access by need rather than geography, and ends the unpredictable bills families face.
Over the coming months, we are publishing a series of detailed, costed policy papers on fee rates, commissioning and workforce. We will press the case in the media and in Parliament until a fair settlement is on the table.
The Settlement is our monthly brief tracking our campaign: what we have done, what we have achieved, and what comes next. Each issue brings together the campaign data, the press coverage, and where the case stands in Westminster. It also sets out concrete things you can do, including how to raise the funding case with your own MP before the summer.
Comment Central, May 2026
Fixing the NHS means tackling the social care crisis Beveridge left behind. It is time for a new vision
When William Beveridge set out his vision for the modern welfare state in 1942, he did so with remarkable clarity and ambition. His aim was nothing less than to defeat the five giants standing in the way of social progress: Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness. It was a founding act of national purpose, and one that produced, among its greatest achievements, the National Health Service, defining Britain's sense of itself for almost eighty years.
