Barry Rawlings says full reform not possible without change at national level but pledge remains, reports Simon Allin, Local Democracy Reporter

Hendon Town Hall and (inset) Barry Rawlings

Barnet Council leader Barry Rawlings has been accused of U-turning on plans to reform the borough’s social care system.

The Barnet Forum for Independent Living, a group that campaigns for better care, claims that since gaining power the Labour group has failed to deliver on manifesto pledges designed to promote independent living and put the service user at the heart of social care.

It alleges that the council is failing to comply with social care legislation – and that while in opposition Cllr Rawlings agreed with this but has not taken action since becoming leader.

Cllr Rawlings insists the council is compliant with legislation and is working to deliver the manifesto pledges, adding that more government support is needed to reform the care system. He said Labour had “always been clear with the forum that to achieve a new vision for social care will take change at national level”.

The forum has compiled a 29-page dossier alleging that the council is in “direct breach” of the Care Act 2014, which sets out how local authorities should provide social care.

Backed up by a 60-page evidence document, it claims that instead of tailoring resources to need as the Care Act requires, the council only recognises needs it has the resources to meet. This means assessment practices required to deliver the system “disempower the individual”.

The forum claims to have identified cuts to the council’s adult social care budget totalling £3.5million since 2019. It alleges that senior managers, rather than social workers, ultimately decide whether residents’ care needs are eligible based on the available funding.

To back up its claims, the forum cites four examples of anonymised individuals receiving social care whose needs, it alleges, are not being properly met because of the council’s practices. It shared these cases with council officers in 2020.

The dossier states: “The council is rejecting the opportunity created by the Care Act to ensure spend is to budget in a different way which would positively promote wellbeing, in both the present and the future, as envisaged by the act.”

When the Labour group was in opposition, prior to the 2022 local election, Cllr Rawlings worked closely with the forum on plans to reform the borough’s social care system.

In a speech he made to the adults and safeguarding committee in February 2020, the then-opposition leader suggested the council was not meeting its statutory obligations under the Care Act because it only meets eligible needs rather than all care and support needs.

The Labour group then proposed a four-point plan designed to empower social workers to “assess needs for wellbeing in the round” and ensure the eligibility threshold is a “floor that can be met comfortably within budget, not a ceiling”.

It also proposed matching spending to budget following assessment and gathering information about unmet need “to inform future budget setting and to lobby for sufficient funding from government”.

According to the forum, this plan would have fully satisfied the Care Act and posed no financial risk, but it was voted down by Conservative members of the committee.

The dossier claims that in October 2020, the Labour leader met a senior council officer who shared legal advice with him indicating that the authority’s approach satisfied the Care Act. The forum says the council has refused to make the advice publicly available, and this is subject to an ongoing legal challenge.

However, in an article published by the Socialist Health Association in January 2021, Cllr Rawlings wrote that none of the “transformative provisions” of the Care Act were being enacted by the council, and that local authorities were continuing to define ‘need’ to suit their budgets.

In May the following year, the Labour group won outright control of Barnet Council for the first time in its history and promised to make sweeping changes to how the borough is run. Its election manifesto had pledged to “focus on independent living, developing a new model of social care that puts the service user at its heart”.

During a meeting of the adults and safeguarding committee in November last year, members agreed an engagement and co-production strategy and charter for social care, which was designed to help deliver the manifesto commitments.

But the forum claims this document “comprehensively failed” to deliver the manifesto pledges and merely “amounted to a series of practice intentions that most would think should be standard practice”.

It accused the council leader of “not facing up to the challenge of a director who is staunchly defending the status quo”.

In January, the forum wrote to both the leader and the chief executive of Barnet Council with a plea to allow it to formally present the dossier and to find a way forward that addressed the evidence and analysis, but it said neither responded.

In response to the forum’s claims, Cllr Rawlings said: “We have been busy working to implement our manifesto pledges in relation to adults’ social care, including developing a new strategy for engagement with people who draw on care and support and introducing a new charter. We have not abandoned any of our pledges and have always been clear with the forum that to achieve a new vision for social care will take change at national level.

“Nationally, there is a social care crisis in terms of funding which the Conservative government has failed to resolve, and we believe the whole system needs reform, but we cannot do this on our own as an isolated council.

“The council’s practice is compliant with the Care Act. The advice referred to is subject to legal professional privilege but has been shared with relevant council decision makers.”

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