11. The Privatization and Financialisation of Social Care in the UK
- Publication Date:
- 10-2020
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- School of Oriental and African Studies - University of London
- Abstract:
- Even before the arrival of COVID-19, the care sector was already in long-term crisis, in large part due to insufficient funding, but the sector has also been under pressure from structural changes resulting from privatisation and financialisation.3 Social care is one of many elements of everyday life which, over the past few decades, have been repackaged to suit the needs of global capital. The process has transformed a social need into a financial issue which in turn translates into new social relations where narratives are constructed in terms of markets and efficiency. Care sector workers are treated as a financial overhead rather than integral to the quality of care provided. The financialisation of social care is an ongoing systemic process, which is accentuated in the increasingly challenging current global investment climate as investors seek alternatives to the low returns from traditional secure investments such as government bonds. This paper is concerned with the tensions resulting in the private provision of social care services. Some of the larger care providers are owned by financial investors that have earned substantial profits via opaque corporate practices. Discussion in the paper shows that while social care offers relatively low risk and high return investment opportunities, structuring care services as a private sector endeavour risks major adverse social outcomes, potentially resulting in: Extensive transfers to the world’s richest via the servicing of basic needs for some of society’s most vulnerable people, financed by taxes and lifetimes’ savings A two tier system of residential care where private providers seek to serve only self-funders Increasing strain on a largely female and minority ethnic un-unionised work force Increasing pressures on (largely female) informal carers that pick up the pieces of the failings in the care system In the inequitable practices of social care providers. However, the paper demonstrates that in the long term, tweaking the margins of regulation will not be sufficient to address the fundamental structural flaws underlying our current care system. Social care services are not competitive and the sector does not work as a conventional market. The analysis acknowledges the complexities of restructuring the care system and therefore offers both short and long term policy suggestions: • Conditions for financial support to the sector in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic should be imposed to curtail the current extractive practices of some care providers. Tighter regulation should promote socially responsible care provision, backed up with additional financial resources and long-term political commitment. • Additional financial support is needed for local authorities to enable them to provide social care and reduce their reliance on private companies. • Consideration should be given to innovative alternative provider models that draw on international examples of good practice. The current structure of social care provision inevitably promotes inequality, while transparency and accountability are lacking. Moreover, the care system is increasingly moulded to suit the priorities of investors rather than social care needs. In the wake of the pandemic, more resources are urgently needed for social care but this is an opportunity for a radical rethink of the ways in which we support the most vulnerable in our society.
- Topic:
- Privatization, Governance, Finance, Welfare, and Social Services
- Political Geography:
- United Kingdom and Europe