Brandon joins forces with five not-for-profit support providers to call for social care change
In this article:
- Brandon joins More Than A Provider
- Who else is in More Than A Provider?
- What does More Than A Provider want to do?
- Policy proposal for the future of social care
- What happens next?
- Find out more about our partners
Brandon joins More Than A Provider
Brandon Trust has joined forces with five other social care providers in a partnership called More Than A Provider.
2024 is Brandon’s 30th anniversary year and we are proud to have a long track record of working with organisations such as Voluntary Organisations Disability Group (VODG) and National Care Forum (NCF), and our unions and representative bodies, to make sure the voices of our staff and people we support are heard by people who make decisions that affect them.
This year, as we approach a general election, we have decided to do more to try to influence whoever leads the next government. We hope that together, we can help people in power to make good decisions about issues that we know really matter to the people we support and our colleagues.
Who else is in More Than A Provider?
The partnership includes MacIntyre, Choice Support, Dimensions, Certitude, and United Response. Each of the partnership members is a charity, funded primarily by local authorities, to provide a range of support for adults, children, and young people, including those with learning disabilities and/or autism.
Together, we support 12,000 people and employ 21,000 staff across England and Wales, working with more than 80% of local authorities. We hope the size of our combined influence means that government ministers and policy writers, in all political parties, can benefit from our experience and specialist knowledge about what social care needs to be able to thrive, and what people we support need in order to live their lives the way they want to.
What does More Than A Provider want to do?
The partnership has been formed as a result of the Social Care Future movement, that wants to ensure everyone has the chance to live a ‘gloriously ordinary life’.
More Than A Provider’s partners want the same result for the people we support. We also know that the reforms needed to make this happen already exist in law, for example in the Care Act 2014, but they still have not been implemented.
And some of the things we need, to make sure everyone can live a ‘gloriously ordinary life’, still need to be agreed by government.
So, together, we want to make sure the reforms happen, and we want to make sure any future government takes specific action to:
- Introduce a minimum benchmark for social care pay at NHS Band 3
- Introduce a pay progression framework for social care
- Introduce national standards for outcomes-based commissioning
- Ensure statutory inclusion of voluntary and community organisations in Integrated Care Boards
- Implement the Hewitt Review recommendation for consolidated health and social care budgets
- Include supported housing in local planning targets
- Introduce a 'kickstart' equivalent for employing young people with a learning disability and/or autism
Policy proposal for the future of social care
You can read more about our proposal for the future of social care in More Than A Provider’s policy proposal (PDF, 5.51MB). This is the document we will be sharing with people interested in social care locally and nationally over the next few months, to raise awareness of the changes we think should be made.
We know that what we are asking for is reasonable, is achievable, and would make a significant positive difference.
What happens next?
The Chief Executives of More Than A Provider’s members, will meet with decision makers to talk about the policy proposals and find out how the six support providers can help politicians to make good decisions about social care.
We will also be supporting the people we support, and our staff, to meet with politicians before the general election, if they want to tell them about their experiences.
More Than A Provider will be speaking to journalists about the policy proposals to raise awareness of what we are asking for, and each of the support providers will be sharing stories about More Than A Provider on their websites and social media channels.
We believe that together, with all our supporters involved as well, we can make positive change happen.
Find out more about our partners
To find out more about the providers Brandon is partnering with, please follow the links below:
MacIntyre
Choice Support
Dimensions
Certitude
United Response
