Our CEO’s letter to the Chancellor on upcoming spending review

Dear Chancellor,

I am writing as the Chief Executive Officer of the Daughters of Charity Services, a Vincentian charity based in Westminster, regarding the spending review which will be held on 11th June.

Our member charities serve some of the most vulnerable people in society, and I am urging you to act for justice with regards to children and families in poverty, as well as adults in the social care system.

As you will know, in March the government announced that it would become more difficult to recruit international care workers from overseas. However, as discussed in our 2024 report Searching for Consensus, international recruitment has been propping up a deeply struggling sector. To ensure that the sector does not fall behind further than it already has, we urge you to commit to investing a minimum of £3.4bn a year into the social care sector. This figure, calculated by the Health Foundation, would ensure that growing demand and rising costs are met.

We also argued that further funding should be provided to improve the retention social care staff. The sector has a large turnover, and many care workers leave for jobs in sectors like hospitality which can offer a higher hourly rate, hence the reliance on overseas labour. To ensure that the talent in the system is retained, we are calling on you to fund training programmes and to ensure that staff are paid a fair wage.

On child and family poverty, we welcome the recent announcements that all children in families that receive Universal Credit will receive free school meals. However, this does not go far enough. We repeat the call of the Free School Meals campaign to provide free school meals for all primary aged children across the UK. At a time where so many families are struggling with the permanent increases from the cost-

of-living crisis, this policy would reduce social stigma, benefit child health and improve school outcomes for thousands of children up and down the country.

We also urge you to end the two-child limit on child benefit. This arbitrary restriction has pulled 30,000 more children into poverty since the last general election. We echo the Child Poverty Action Group’s demand for this to be scrapped. This would lift 350,000 children out of poverty instantly and would cost £2bn. No child should be facing poverty in a county as rich as ours and we urge you to support this.

I hope you will consider our asks. Yours sincerely,

Mark Choonara
Chief Executive Officer