NCF Member Briefing 21.7.23
By-Election Results
The results of yesterday’s three by-elections in Uxbridge and South Ruislip, Somerton and Frome and Selby and Ainsty, were announced early this morning. While the Conservatives did manage to retain one seat, last night was not a good night for the Conservatives.
Labour gained a seat in Selby and Ainsty, with a 24% swing from Conservatives to them – the second worst result the Tories have faced against Labour in any by-election in history. Keir Mather was elected.
Labour narrowly failed to win Boris Johnson’s former seat of Uxbridge and South Ruislip but the Conservatives had their majority reduced to around 500. The key deciding issue appears to have been the expansion of the Ultra Low Emissions Zone (ULEZ) under the London Mayor, which the Conservatives capitalised upon in their campaign. Steve Tuckwell was elected.
Finally, the Liberal Democrats have reclaimed their old seat in Somerton and Frome with a 29% swing from Conservatives to them. Sarah Dyke was elected.
The question now is what this might mean to the approach the main parties take in the lead up to the next General Election, as well as the timings of that election. While we have heard speculation about a General Election in May 2024, Bloomberg is reporting that the Conservatives are aiming for November 2024 as the PM hopes the UK economy will have recovered by then.
Social Housing (Regulation) Act 2023
The Social Housing (Regulation) Act is now law having received the royal assent yesterday. The Act is part of the response to the Grenfell Tower tragedy. It will do the following:
Strengthen the Regulator of Social Housing to carry out regular inspections of the largest social housing providers and the power to issue unlimited fines to rogue social landlords.
Introduce additional Housing Ombudsman powers to publish best practice guidance to landlords following investigations into tenant complaints.
Introduce powers to set strict time limits for social landlords to address hazards such as damp and mould.
Introduce new qualification requirements for social housing managers.
Introduce stronger economic powers to follow inappropriate money transactions outside of the sector.
The final legislation hasn’t been published yet, but we will circulate it when it is.
The Caring Penalty
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) published a very important report earlier this week. The report focuses on two broad groups of carers: those who care for someone who is sick, disabled or elderly and those who care for a child who is not sick or disabled. The report calls these ‘unpaid social-care givers’ and ‘unpaid child-care givers’ respectively.
Estimating the pay penalty for individual carers, the report finds that:
Unpaid child-care givers experience an average pay penalty of £1,264 per month (over £15,000 per year) reaching £1,785 (over £21,000 per year) after six years of providing unpaid care.
Meanwhile, unpaid social-care givers experience an average pay penalty of £487 per month (nearly £6,000 per year) reaching £744 per month (nearly £9,000 per year) after six years of providing unpaid care.
By the end of the sixth year, unpaid child-care givers will have foregone a cumulative total of more than £100,000 in gross pay on average, while unpaid social-care givers will have foregone over £40,000.
These penalties are driven by carers leaving paid work and reducing their hours after they start providing care, set against the increases in pay that they would have otherwise experienced.
The caring penalty falls disproportionately on women and households in poverty. Ethnic minority groups are also overrepresented in the case of unpaid child-care givers, as are people with health conditions in the case of unpaid social-care givers.
Evaluating existing policies, the report finds that:
Maternity pay appears to be effective at keeping unpaid child-care givers in paid work, with over 80% of those who take maternity leave returning to paid work (often part-time) the following year. However, even with employer top-ups, maternity pay provides low levels of earnings replacement over the course of maternity leave – less than 50% for someone earning £500 per week.
Carers Allowance (CA) is ineffective both at incentivising paid work and at replacing earnings. Examining new CA recipients, broadly the same proportion are in work in Year 0 (15%) as in Year 2 (16%). Even when CA is considered alongside Universal Credit (UC) and pensions, these sources of income replace less than 50% of earnings for the majority of new unpaid social-care givers who leave work.
As a result, household income penalties remain, amounting to £731 per month (nearly £9,000 per year) for unpaid child-care givers and £234 per month (nearly £3,000 per year) for unpaid social-care givers on average. These penalties also increase over time. On average, by the end of the sixth year after starting caring, unpaid child-care givers will have foregone a cumulative total of over £60,000 in net household income, with unpaid social-care givers foregoing nearly £20,000.
These income penalties translate into higher poverty rates. The relative poverty rate among unpaid child-care givers doubles five years after beginning caring, from 10% to 20%. Poverty rates are more stable among unpaid social-care givers, though if we exclude disability benefits – which are intended to compensate for additional costs – we see a marked increase in relative poverty.
The report proposes that any future settlement around care – unpaid or formal – should include a new Statutory Carer Pay entitlement, which mirrors statutory maternity pay and provides earnings-related financial support for carers with high-intensity caring demands up to nine months. This maintains the link between the carer and work, unlike Carers Allowance, and would prevent the financial shock of significantly reducing or exiting work, as well as reducing the demand for formal care services in the future.
Pandemic Stories: Learning Disability England and the Coronavirus and People with Learning Disabilities Study
Learning Disability England and the Coronavirus and People with Learning Disabilities Study are holding a webinar. People with learning disabilities and their family members will share digital stories together about how the pandemic has changed lives. They will share ideas on what needs to be learned from the experiences so people can lead Good Lives.
The session is open to anyone who is interested. It might be particularly useful for service providers and other decision-makers. The event is taking place from 10am – 11.30am on Friday 15th September 2023. It will be hosted over Zoom.
Here is an easy read invitation that you can share with your networks: https://www.learningdisabilityengland.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Pandemic-Stories-Invitation.pdf.
Here is the link to Eventbrite where people can sign up to the event: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/676634902207.
You can find out more about the Coronavirus and People with Learning Disabilities Study by looking at their website: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/cedar/covid19-learningdisability/wave4newparticipants/.