Workforce pressures, financial strain and rising mental health problems are more persistent than ever, according to the latest findings.
Whenever a new report concerning the care sector is published, we often assume its contents are bleak. This instance is no different. Today (15th July) the 2025 ADASS Spring Survey was published which draws on responses from 139 directors of adult social services across 153 councils.
In the study’s foreword, Jess McGregor, President of the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS), said: ‘This year’s survey is a continuation of the themes from the 2024 report with the financial challenges intensifying, need for care and support increasing, activity shifting to adult social care from the NHS and unpaid carers being left to pick up the slack to the detriment of their own health and wellbeing.’
According to the survey’s findings, 80% of councils overspent on adult social care between 2024/25, with the national total reaching £774m – the highest figure within the last 10 years.
Going forward, directors have estimated savings of £932m, marking the largest planned savings since 2016/17. However, confidence in achieving this figure remains low, with a mere 16% of directors saying they think this is possible.
In similar vein, spending on preventative care has also fallen to its lowest level in four years. The figure now sits at £1.3bn despite agreement among directors that investment in early intervention yields better outcomes.
Reacting to the survey, Councillor David Fothergill, chair of the Local Government Association’s Community Wellbeing Board, said the findings ‘starkly show how councils are caught in the impossible position of having to choose between meeting people’s complex care needs and supporting other people’s wellbeing to prevent their needs from escalating. In this situation, council’s cannot deliver the government’s ambition to shift care from hospital to community without sustainable funding for adult social care.’
Another key issue highlighted in the report is just how stretched care workers are. 94% of the survey’s participants agreed staff are taking on jobs that are meant for the NHS. For example, 64% reported that their staff are providing clinical oversight to individuals with primary health needs in the absence of formal NHS agreements.
Against this backdrop, Kathryn Marsden OBE, chief executive of the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE), said: ‘When local authorities are forced to divert limited resources into crisis management, the opportunity to invest in preventative, early intervention is lost. This not only undermines outcomes for people who draw on care and support but also the government’s own ambitions for both social care and the NHS.
‘A sustainable health and care system relies on a rebalanced model – one that moves resources into community settings to enable support to be delivered earlier, closer to home, and in ways that promote independence. The government’s Ten-Year Plan rightly looks to address this – but largely overlooks the essential role of social care.’
Boiled down, social care services aim to provide people with the highest quality of care possible, but how can this be the case when workforce pressures remain acute. Almost nine in 10 directors claimed they are either extremely or quite concerned about rising costs and 86% said this impacts their ability to pay provider fees that reflect inflation, national insurance hikes and national living wage increases.
On the subject of stress, the findings reveal that unpaid carers are being pushed to their limits. 76% of directors reported an increase in carers seeking council support in the last year while 91% cited lack of healthcare access as a frequent cause for carers breakdowns.
‘Although the [care] sector is in desperate need of reform to unlock its full potential, it has already done the work to identify what the problems are through reports such as this one,’ Kathryn remarked.
‘It is now up to the government, working in partnership with social care leaders, to ensure the preventative role of social care is not sidelined but prioritised in our health and care system reforms.’
Echoing a similar tone, the report from ADASS reads: ‘Through investing in prevention and early intervention we can maintain and improve people’s wellbeing.
‘However, we now find ourselves in a place where council and adult social care budgets are insufficient to fully address all of their legal duties.’
Photo by Aarón Blanco Tejedor via UnSplash
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