5 March 2026
The Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE) has responded to a speech by Baroness Louise Casey at the Nuffield Trust Summit today, 5 March 2026, where she set out her initial reflections on the state of the social care sector as part of the work of the independent social care commission.
In her speech, Baroness Casey described the Commission’s work to date, including extensive engagement with the social care sector and the significant level of support it has received. She emphasised the role that lived experience has played in informing the Commission’s early thinking, and reflected on the current state of the system, describing a sector shaped by decades of policy commitments and reforms rather than a single founding moment.
Baroness Casey has brought welcome clarity to the scale of the challenge facing social care. Her framing of the sector’s pressures—demographic change, growing complexity of need, and a system built through ‘add-ons and workarounds’—will resonate with many across the sector. The Commission’s extensive engagement with organisations, practitioners and people with lived experience is encouraging, and we look forward to working with Baroness Casey and the Commission as this important work progresses.
Her call for a moment of reckoning and renewal is an important one. Social care has never had the kind of design moment that shaped other parts of the welfare state. If we are serious about reform, we need to be honest about the pressures created by demographic change and rising complexity of need, and clear with the public about what a future system of care and support should provide.
We also welcome the focus on strengthening safeguarding. The proposal to establish a new National Safeguarding Board could help ensure that learning is shared and responsibilities are clearer across the system. This is an important step to ensuring that safeguarding is everyone’s responsibility.
Gerard Crofton-Martin
Interim Chief Executive of the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE)
About SCIE
The Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE) improves the lives of people of all ages by co-producing, sharing, and supporting the use of the best available knowledge and evidence about what works in practice. We are a leading independent social care charity working with organisations that support adults, families and children across the UK.
If you have any questions regarding this release, please do not hesitate to contact Molly Pennington, Press and Media Relations Officer, at molly.pennington@scie.org.uk