Southdown Joins Call to Brighton & Hove Council Leaders: Save Social Care
Posted on 14 February 2025
Following last month’s demonstration in Chichester, social care providers, service users, and supporters gathered outside Hove Town Hall yesterday to urge Brighton & Hove City Council to make urgent investment in social care. The event saw a strong turnout, with members of the public showing their support for fair funding and highlighting the essential role social care plays in people’s lives.
Joined by other care providers and advocates, including Grace Eyre, Speak Out, Stay Up Late, Carousel and others, we highlighted why social care needs urgent and meaningful investment for it to survive.
Eva Eriksson, Chief Executive of Grace Eyre, reinforced the vital need for increased financial support:
“It was inspiring to stand up for social care in Chichester last month, alongside colleagues, partners, friends, and so many people directly supported by the sector, and make our voices heard.
I’m proud to be standing side by side with them again to demand urgent and meaningful investment in social care from Brighton and Hove City Council. Without proper funding, individuals, families, and communities will suffer.
As we know very well at Grace Eyre, through the range of support we provide for people with a learning disability, autistic people and others, social care saves lives. But it needs proper and adequate financial investment and this year, to keep up with rising costs, we need at least 8%. We are urgently appealing to both our local and national governments to make sure the sector gets this now.”
Challenges Facing the Social Care Sector
Social care providers across Sussex, particularly those supporting individuals with learning disabilities, face mounting financial pressures that threaten the sustainability of essential services. Key challenges include:
- National Insurance Increase: A 1.2% rise in employer contributions and a reduced threshold to £5,000 have significantly impacted payroll costs in a sector heavily reliant on low-wage, part-time staff.
- National Living Wage (NLW) Increase: A 6.7% rise in the NLW, while beneficial to workers, has placed additional pressure on budgets.
– Many organisations strive to pay the Real Living Wage, which has increased by 60p per hour, exacerbating financial strain. - Contract and Provider Viability: Multi-year contracts without annual inflationary adjustments are putting services at risk.
These issues have caused staffing costs to rise dramatically, alongside inflationary pressures on utilities and supplies.
Urgent Fee Uplifts Needed
The Sussex Learning Disability VCSE CEO Group – which Southdown CEO Neil Blanchard is the chair of, and includes senior leaders from Grace Eyre Foundation, Aldingbourne Trust, Speak Out, Amaze, Guild Care, Active Prospects and Ferring County Centre – is urging local authorities to implement a minimum 8% fee uplift for learning disability services in the 2025/26 financial year to:
- Maintain adequate staffing level and current service provision
- Attract and retain skilled professionals with competitive wage
- Preserve the quality of care and support for individuals with learning disabilities
Neil Blanchard, Southdown’s Chief Executive and Chair of the Sussex Learning Disability VCSE CEO Group, said:
“Having started my own career as a learning disability support worker, I know firsthand how invaluable social care support is. Services already operate at the margins, and inadequate funding threatens the sustainability of the homes and support for individuals with learning disabilities.
The role of our organisations is not to subsidise services that the local authority has a duty of care to provide and they’re contracting us to provide. That’s why we’re campaigning for an appropriate fee uplift in light of the significant financial pressures facing our sector. Please bring your voices, passion, and support to the rally. Together, we can ensure social care gets the funding it urgently needs.”
Brighton and Hove City Council’s draft budget states that there will be cuts of £9 million in adult social care, which the sector just can’t sustain. However, Brighton and Hove City Council have also received £71 million of central funding to manage the changes to National Insurance payments – we asked them to make sure they pass this on to their providers. Investing in social care is an investment for everybody.
Here are some glimpses from the event:
