Adult social care contributes over £50 billion to English economy, new report finds

The growing adult social care sector and its skilled workforce contributes £50.3bn to the English economy and provides significant societal benefits, according to a new report published by Skills for Care.

The report titled ‘The value of adult social care in England' estimates these economic benefits are at least £7.9 billion over and above the economic value of £50.3 billion.

During the pandemic, the sector’s economic activity increased by nearly eight per cent while other sectors saw their activity stall or shrink by up to four per cent overall. This resulted in the adult social care contribution to the whole economy growing from 1.4 per cent to 1.6 per cent.

Skills for Care chief executive Oonagh Smyth said: “This report supports our vision of a fair and just society, where people can access the advice, care and support they need delivered by skilled and motivated workers to live their lives to the fullest.

“Over the last year the one and a half million people who work in social care have gone above and beyond the call of duty to continue to support our families and people in all of our communities to live their lives, to do the things that they want and keep the relationships that are important to them. This report shows very clearly that they also make a significant and growing contribution to the national economy.”

The Skill for Care commissioned economic consultants KDNA to produce a detailed analysis of how the significant economic spend is made in communities across England.

The consultants studied the sector’s status and how it is valued by society and monetised some of these benefits, including improved wellbeing of care workers as well as employment opportunities which they calculated as being up to £1.3bn and around £5.6 billion for working age adults.

Skills for Care say the report can help shape contracts that reward and value quality of care and will allow payment of wages to care staff that will better represent the true value of the work they do to support people in the communities.

Ms Smyth added: “This report offers decision makers real insight into just how important that contribution will be to the nation’s economic recovery and offers ideas about what we can do to ensure we properly recognise the efforts of our workforce who have made such huge sacrifices during the pandemic.”

In regard to long term sustainability in adult social care the report suggests the sector needs to move away from payment for adult social care processes and instead move to payment based on better outcomes for people who draw on care and support services.

They add the skills and knowledge of the one and a half million strong adult social care workforce is absolutely central to high quality role they undertake every day and investing in the development of talented care workers has significant benefits to the people drawing who need care and support as well as the wider benefits to the national economy.

Any sustained growth in adult social care will boost local economies, creating new jobs in the sector and additional benefits via indirect and induced ‘multiplier’ effects.

That economic growth would take place throughout England but would have the greatest impact, and so support levelling up, in Northern and Midlands regions, where adult social care Gross value added (GVA) is around two per cent compared to less than one per cent in London and the South East.