Question: what’s a way of getting up to 400,000 willing workers into the workforce without importing them from abroad? The clue is that these are carers of elderly or disabled dependents who left paid employment because they couldn’t combine work with their responsibilities. If they were women with very young children, there would be practically nothing the government wouldn’t throw at them to enable them to stay in work – and I’m not even sure that’s wise, certainly with pre-school age toddlers. But these are people who could work, who want to work, but can’t work because it’s too difficult financially and practically.
And the answer? I refer you to a new policy document, Creating a Britain that Works and Cares, published today by the Centre for Social Justice, which suggests some relatively simple, cost effective ways of enabling people to look after people they love in their own home and to be economically and fiscally productive while they’re at it.
My favourite minor recommendation is for a grant for Japanese loos
The larger recommendations range from the sensible provision of a one-stop hub for prospective carers in hospitals and surgeries to help people navigate the complex grant system, to the Department for Work and Pensions doing more to advertise the grants that are in fact available. The report also suggests giving ten hours of free home care to those who need it.
My favourite minor recommendation is for a grant, where appropriate, for Japanese loos; the expensive versions are fabulous things you get in grand hotels. They wash your bits automatically after you use the toilet and dry them; that’s a job that many frail people can’t do and which would otherwise fall on carers.
Many of these carers are family members. I can relate to this because my mother in Ireland had Parkinson’s, and I had to flit back and forth to help look after her. The trickiest bit was broken sleep…my mother couldn’t sleep and would look for a drink or company during the night. That was rough. But I managed, with a combination of excellent local authority carers three times a day, and the rota of private carers my cousin supervised. Still, I was working and earning. It was way more difficult for my English uncle years before, who, in retirement, was left to look after my grandmother in London who had dementia; he got no help. When he, in turn, got old and got dementia, as a bachelor, he got a raw deal. Nota bene: lots of carers are men.
The obvious fact is that if family carers didn’t exist, the state would find it impossible to replace them; estimates vary, but the Census suggests there may be five million. A crude estimate is that they save the NHS and local authorities about £162 billion a year, but that’s a reductive approach to loving care. At present, about half of local authority funds are spent on adult social care (about £27 billion a year) and you don’t need reminding about the proportion of legal migrants who come to Britain to work in the sector.
But there’s quite a lot more we could do to help. A poll for the report suggested that 60 per cent of full time workers and 70 per cent of part-timers would return to work or do longer hours with ‘the right support’. About 40 per cent of those out of work would return with five days’ paid leave a year; 40 per cent would if there were a higher earnings threshold for the carers’ allowance; a third would if home adaptions were available (stair lifts, say); 40 per cent would if there were ten hours’ free domiciliary care available a week. These measures aren’t cheap, but the cost would be partly offset by the tax paid by those returned workers. The three measures: more generous grants, home adaptations and ten hours’ weekly free home care could be transformative. You can already get about £1,000 from local authorities for home adaptations; the report suggests doubling that, which is more realistic.
The government has form in avoiding the legendarily difficult problem of social care, but this report is eminently do-able. Everyone who may get old one day, or who may end up caring for elderly relatives should read the recommendations; all local authority executives should read the report.
We go on endlessly about getting the economically unproductive back to work. Well, here’s how, for 400,000 people who would work, given the chance.
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