Barbara Keeley MP, Labour’s Shadow Cabinet Minister for Social Care, commenting on the CLG select committee report in to social care, said:

“This report is yet more evidence of government failure on social care.

"With less than 10 per cent of directors of adult social care confident they will be able to fulfil their statutory duty to provide care this coming year, it’s clear that the Government simply has not done enough to give social care the funding it needs.

“The underfunding of social care is hitting the care work force with nearly half of all care staff on zero-hours contracts and hundreds of thousands of them scandalously earning less than the living wage. And as the cuts to budgets bite, we are seeing the number of people caring for family and friends unpaid going up faster than population growth. This is bad for the family carers and can put great strain on families. 

"The Government should heed the recommendations from the committee and make sure that their upcoming Green Paper does not rule any future funding options out.  We need social care to be put on a long term sustainable financial footing and we need an end to this on-going funding crisis.”