13/11/2025
📊 £256m in care funding extracted from just three English regions, new analysis shows
Between 2021 and 2024, private care providers extracted approximately £256 million from public care budgets in the North East, South Yorkshire, and West Midlands, according to a new report by the Reclaiming Our Regional Economies (RORE) programme. Of this, £87.7 million went to firms linked to private equity or tax havens.
The report highlights how public investment in adult social care, children’s residential services, and related provision is not always reinvested locally. Instead, significant sums are diverted as dividends, interest payments, and executive remuneration, with some directors earning up to 60 times the average care worker’s wage.
Key figures from the analysis include:
• £45 million paid out in dividends
• £33.6 million in interest payments—up to 60% of which flowed to private equity or offshore entities
• £3.8 billion in total local authority care spending across the three regions in 2024 alone
The authors call for legal limits on extraction, procurement reform, and regional collaboration to ensure care funding supports service quality and workforce conditions.
Durham Tees Care has been calling for more support from local authorities for locally owned care providers. Is anyone listening?
Source: https://publication.cles.org.uk/ending-extraction-in-the-uk-care-system
