The Settlement — Vol 1, No 1
The monthly campaign brief from the Care Association Alliance.
The Settlement
The monthly campaign brief from the Care Association Alliance
From the co-chair
We have set out our agenda for a national funding settlement. Now we make the case, month after month.
Hello, and welcome to the first edition of The Settlement, the monthly campaign newsletter from the Care Association Alliance. This is our update to you: what we have been doing over the past month, what we have achieved, and what we are doing next.
And there has been no bigger month to begin with. The CAA has announced its vision for reform, Building a National Care Service: A Programme for Reform, setting out our agenda for a national funding settlement. The announcement comes ahead of the formal launch, in the coming weeks, of the first in a series of detailed policy papers: the case for fee rates that meet the true cost of care, for access decided by need rather than geography, and for an end to the unpredictable bills families face.
It also comes as Ministers are reported to be poised to abandon plans for a standalone national care service body. For us, that body was never the point: an organisation sitting above the system is not what we called for, and scrapping the idea changes nothing for the providers closing this year or the people waiting for care this year. What has to change is how care is funded, and that is work Ministers cannot defer to 2028.
The funding backdrop has not changed. The Chancellor's £4 billion increase by 2028/29 arrives, on its current trajectory, years too late. Local authority fees keep diverging from the cost of safe provision: the Homecare Association puts the minimum sustainable homecare rate at £32.14 and finds only 1% of public contracts meet it, while Skills for Care records a 9.7% workforce vacancy rate. The fee gap and the workforce gap are the same gap, seen from different ends of the same operation. What we have is not a settlement. What we are building the case for is.
Setting out the agenda is the beginning, not the end. The first full draft of the programme paper, the document that turns that agenda into a detailed, costed case, is being written now, and we will keep making that case in public and in Parliament until it lands. That is what The Settlement is for: a brief you can trust to be exact, because credibility is our strongest weapon.
It is also written to be shared. Each issue goes to care associations across the country so you can pass it to your own members, the registered managers, owners and directors who carry the case into every constituency. Inside this issue: the campaign data, the coverage so far, where the case sits in Westminster, and three things to take to your members before we are back in your inbox on 1 July.
"This announcement is the start of a sustained campaign, not a single moment. The sector cannot wait until 2028, so we will keep the evidence in front of ministers, advisers and members every month until a fair settlement is on the table." William Walter, founder, Bridgehead Communications
Produced for the CAA by Bridgehead Communications, with strategic counsel from Damian Green, former Deputy Prime Minister with responsibility for social care and now a senior adviser to Bridgehead. Press and campaign enquiries: wwalter@bridgeheadcommunications.com.
In the press
How the sector press reported it
The announcement drew immediate coverage across the trade press, leading on the warning that waiting until 2028 leaves reform too late.
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"Care chief: 'We never needed our own version of the NHS, we need a national funding settlement'"
Care Home Professional, 29 May 2026 · read
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"Care Association Alliance launches policy papers targeting sector reform"
Caring Times, 28 May 2026 · read
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"CAA launches reform programme as sector warns 2028 is too late for social care"
The Carer, 27 May 2026 · read
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"We need a new vision for care sector reform"
Care Home Professional · guest column by Melanie Weatherley MBE, 14 May 2026 · read
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"Fixing the NHS means tackling the social care crisis Beveridge left behind"
Comment Central · op-ed by Melanie Weatherley MBE, 13 May 2026 · read
The Number
This month's figure
£32.14
The minimum hourly rate at which homecare can sustainably be provided in England in 2025/26, on the Homecare Association's published model. Only 1% of homecare contracts with public bodies currently pay at or above it.
Source: The Homecare Association, Minimum Price for Homecare 2025/26 · read the calculation
Action for associations
Three things to take to your members before 1 July
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Forward this brief to your members
The Settlement is written to be cascaded. Share it with your registered managers, owners and directors so the case reaches every provider, not just every association.
Share the issue -
Ask your members to invite their MP to meet us
Encourage your members to invite their local MP to meet the CAA. There is no stronger way to make the case than a provider and an MP in the same room. Tell us who is interested and the campaign team will help arrange it.
Request a meeting -
Send us a member case study
July's From the Frontline needs a provider story on workforce retention. Nominate a member and the campaign team will handle consent.
Nominate a case study
Westminster
Your background research for writing to, or meeting, your MP
If you or your members are writing to a local MP, or meeting them at a constituency surgery, this section is your briefing. The three developments below are the live points of contact between the funding case and Parliament right now. Each one gives you something concrete to raise, with the source to back it up, so the case lands as informed rather than general.
The timing matters. The House of Commons rises for the summer recess on Friday 17 July 2026, and does not return until Monday 31 August. That leaves roughly six weeks, and around six Fridays when most MPs hold constituency surgeries (5, 12, 19 and 26 June, then 3 and 10 July), to write or meet before MPs leave Westminster for the summer.
The funding line your MP will repeat, and how to answer it
When the Commons debated the Spending Review's health and social care provisions, the government's case was that the settlement is substantial and on track. The CAA's published response called it a package that "fail[s] to deliver the urgent investment social care needs". That distance between the dispatch box and the front line is the opening: when an MP cites the headline figure, the Hansard record is where you show them what it leaves out.
Source: Hansard, 12 June 2025 · read on hansard.parliament.uk
Peers have put workforce and integration back in play
The King's Speech debate returned adult social care funding, workforce, and integration with the NHS to the floor of the Lords. It matters now because it signals which arguments still have traction before the legislative programme is fixed. Members briefing peers or local MPs should anchor to the points raised here while they are live, not after the bills are drafted.
Source: Hansard, 14 May 2026 · read on hansard.parliament.uk
The one citation every MP's office already trusts
When a researcher briefs their MP on social care funding, this standing briefing is the document they reach for. That is exactly why it belongs in your own ask: cite CBP-7903 and you are speaking the language the MP's office already uses, which is half the work of getting the case taken seriously.
Source: House of Commons Library · read the briefing
The programme
What we announced, and what comes next
Building a National Care Service: A Programme for Reform sets out the CAA's agenda: the sector never needed its own version of the NHS, it needs a nationally coherent funding settlement, and reform across funding, commissioning and workforce has to come together rather than arrive in pieces. The announcement sets out that agenda; the detailed policy papers, and the costed case they build, begin to land in the coming weeks.
The first full draft of the programme paper is being written now. It is the document that turns the agenda into a detailed, costed case, and it will be stronger for member evidence. If your association has data or frontline examples the paper should reflect, the campaign team wants them.
Send the campaign team your evidenceThe road map
What comes next, and when
Two tracks run side by side from here: the papers that build the detailed case, and the media and political engagement that carries it to the people who decide. The themes and their order are set; the timing firms up as we go.
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Now
PaperVision and agenda announced; the first policy paper, on funding, launches in the coming weeks, with the full Programme for Reform paper in first draft.
EngagementAnnouncement covered across the trade press, The Settlement begins, and members brief their MPs before the summer recess on 17 July.
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Summer
PaperCommissioning: how care is bought and paid for, and why current practice drives instability.
EngagementOp-eds in the trade and national press, member case studies, and a first wave of constituency briefings over the recess.
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Autumn
PaperWorkforce: recruitment, retention and pay.
EngagementParty conference fringe events, peer briefings, and written evidence to the relevant select committees.
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Winter
PaperService delivery and the relationship between health and care, then the full Programme for Reform.
EngagementSustained national press and direct ministerial engagement, pressing the funding settlement ahead of the next fiscal event.
Indicative schedule. Confirmed paper dates and engagement milestones run in each month's edition.
From the Frontline
This month's member voice
The real first issue will feature an 80–120 word testimony from a named CAA member — registered manager, director, or owner — in their own voice, with care home name, town, CQC location ID, and member association. Consent is signed, scope is recorded, and the quotes are reproduced verbatim from the consent log.
Member services is sourcing the case study for the first issue around the theme of the local authority fee differential. The pipeline target is to maintain two to three consent-cleared cases at all times.
Diary
Mark these dates
- Wed 11 Jun Care Innovation Summit 2026 — Business Design Centre, London. 500+ senior leaders from across adult social care. Streams on Future of Care, Dementia Care, and Healthcare Design & Build.
- Sun 15 – Sat 21 Jun Care Home Open Week 2026 — nationwide. Annual campaign connecting care homes with their local communities. Members are encouraged to host an open day and invite their MP.
- Fri 27 Jun Member briefing window closes Last day to submit constituency briefings before the summer recess. Templates on the CAA portal.
- Tue 1 Jul Next issue of The Settlement In your inbox at 07:30 BST.
- Fri 17 Jul House of Commons rises for the summer recess From this date until Monday 31 August, MPs leave Westminster and base themselves in their constituencies. Parliamentary business pauses, so the time to write to an MP or invite them to meet, while they are still in Westminster, is before this date. Constituency surgeries usually continue through the summer, so a recess Friday can still be a good chance to meet your MP in person, locally.