The pandemic has shone a welcome light on the social care sector.

Here at @instituteforgov we have produced the first comprehensive report since devolution assessing the performance of the adult social care systems in the four nations.

Here are some of our findings

Social care is delivered differently in each nation - by joint health and social care trusts in NI, and local authorities in other nations.

and NI offer some free home care, and govt caps homecare costs. Otherwise, care is means- and needs-tested, & difficult to access.

Spending has been increasing in NI, flat in and, and falling in over the past decade - despite rising need.

Countries also spend differently.

spends more on working age adults (generally w disabilities or learning difficulties). and NI spend more on older people.

They also spend on different types of care.

govt has successfully shifting spending from care homes to the community, with care home residents falling and home care rising.

govt, OTOH, now spends more on residential care after changing means test for care home residents.

The number of people receiving care in has fallen in the past ten years - only in NI is it steady.

Access to care has been restricted by frozen means test thresholds, delays in assessment and tightening eligibility requirements by local authorities.

This is despite policy changes like free personal care in which have theoretically made govt offer more generous.

And despite free personal care for elderly, Scotland still loses more bed days to delayed discharges than any other country.

This all comes at a cost. Many people end up having to pay for their own care in all four nations - and this is highest in , with less generous means test and free offer and higher wealth.

And significant numbers, especially in and NI, are providing unpaid care.

This report was interesting but a difficult undertaking - social care data is often poor quality and difficult to compare between nations.

We call in the report for @UKGSS and @StatsRegulation to continue their work on improving the quality and comparability of social care data.

Finally, thanks to co-authors @GrahamTAtkins, @AndrewDSPhil, @awstojanovic and all those whose comments were gratefully received on initial drafts.

The link to the paper is here for those who have reached the end of this thread: https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/publications/devolved-public-services

cc @AlisonHoltBBC @RKWinvisibleman @indiapollock @BBCLucyAdams