You asked how this amounted to Tory penny pinching in another stub but you're answering it. Since Tories came to power in 2010, a 1.3% fall in all social spending in an economy that has grown slower than inflation means an actual terms cut.
It's important to note that social welfare also covers housing, unemployment and other things not care in the same sense as being discussed. Housing costs have exploded in price so even more of that stagnant budget has been diverted away from care.
Once you allow for inflation, there is a growing underspend in care. A starvation. Yes, generations of growth, but not finding it appropriately now (and for a decade) means it's being starved.
I'm leaving it with the Health Foundation, there. I'd suggest you read that if you really want an appreciation of how budgets and inflation work together but if you just want to tell me "they have more money, so it's being wasted more" you don't understand how money works; I can't help you.
And if you're reading around, be wary of COVID era numbers as they include boosts for testing and extraordinary measures. Nothing that increases provisionable service.
If spending was the issue, the doubling of social welfare spending's share of GDP would have provided such a massive amount of resources to these programs that a 1.3 percent drop in relative spending wouldn't lead to the dire outcomes this article references.
And if you call the Tories reducing spending by 1.3 percent of GDP, what do you call a doubling of spending as a share of GDP? The Big Picture here is massive spending growth over the long run, that totally eclipses this minute drop.
>>Once you allow for inflation, there is a growing underspend in care
Wrong. The UK has seen significant per capita GDP growth, after accounting for inflation.
So rising social spending as a percentage of GDP means rapidly rising inflation-adjusted spending per capita.
It's important to note that social welfare also covers housing, unemployment and other things not care in the same sense as being discussed. Housing costs have exploded in price so even more of that stagnant budget has been diverted away from care.
Once you allow for inflation, there is a growing underspend in care. A starvation. Yes, generations of growth, but not finding it appropriately now (and for a decade) means it's being starved.
https://www.health.org.uk/publications/long-reads/health-and...
I'm leaving it with the Health Foundation, there. I'd suggest you read that if you really want an appreciation of how budgets and inflation work together but if you just want to tell me "they have more money, so it's being wasted more" you don't understand how money works; I can't help you.
And if you're reading around, be wary of COVID era numbers as they include boosts for testing and extraordinary measures. Nothing that increases provisionable service.