20 June 2025
The Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE) yesterday welcomed the appointment of Chris Badger, the new Chief Inspector of Adult Social Care and Integrated Care at the Care Quality Commission (CQC), recognising the pivotal role this position will play at a time of significant challenge and opportunity across the sector.
The latest State of Care report from the CQC lays bare the scale of the task ahead. It highlights ongoing and deepening pressures on adult social care, from persistent workforce shortages and unequal access to services, to variability in quality and rising unmet need. In this context, strong, fair and forward-looking regulation is more important than ever.
In response to the appointment, Kathryn Smith OBE, Chief Executive of SCIE, said:
“We warmly welcome Chris Badger’s appointment as the new Chief Inspector at such a critical juncture for adult social care. The State of Care report underscores the urgent need for system-wide improvement, with people who draw on care and support often facing fragmented services and variable standards.
“As the CQC looks to build from the recommendations of the Dash Review, there is an opportunity to develop a regulatory environment that not only assures safety and quality but actively supports improvement, learning and innovation. Achieving this requires collaboration across the care sector – between commissioners, providers, regulators and people who draw on services.
“This becomes all the more important with a National Care Service on the horizon, which will be underpinned by consistent national standards. Effective and trusted regulation will be a cornerstone of successfully realising this goal, ensuring that people wherever they live, receive care that is safe, person-centred and grounded in dignity and respect.
“SCIE looks forward to working with Chris Badger to ensure regulation enables, not inhibits, the transformation our sector needs.”
Notes to editors
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 social care improvement independent charity working with organisations that support adults, families and children across the UK. We also work closely with related services such as health care and housing. We improve the quality of care and support services for adults and children by:
- Identifying and sharing knowledge about what works and what’s new.
- Supporting people who plan, commission, deliver and use services to put that knowledge into practice.
- Informing, influencing and inspiring the direction of future practice and policy.
Our mission is to support best practice, shape policy and raise awareness of the importance of social care, working together. With the government’s ambition of reducing consultancy bills, SCIE can serve as the not-for-profit partner of government, working collaboratively to identify and implement improvements.
If you have any questions regarding this submission, please do not hesitate to contact media@scie.org.uk