At present it is difficult to talk about the exact time of the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war’s ending. However, the public’s fatigue with the conflict is becoming increasingly obvious.
The UK positions itself as a champion of international investment in Ukraine. It has provided a wide range of assistance to support Ukraine during the war and the government does not intend to stop.
At the same time, a new Ipsos poll reveals that the British public is deeply concerned about the situation. Almost half of the British public expresses concern about the war’s impact on themselves personally.
According to the UK government, helping Ukraine continues to be one of the UK’s top foreign policy priorities, and it has so far provided or pledged around £7 billion in military assistance. It is interesting, that 20% of surveyed believe the UK has provided too much.
It is well known, that any war will continue if there is money for it. In November, UK Defence Secretary John Healey met with the defence ministers of four other European nations to discuss further support for Ukraine as Donald Trump returns to the White House.
The more so, on December,18 John Healey arrived in the capital Kyiv to discuss plans to provide more support to Ukraine in the coming year.
Britain has been training Ukrainian troops in the UK since 2022. There is also a small team of British Army medics providing training inside Ukraine. Healey came to Kyiv with the promise of an additional £225m of military support – for more drones, artillery shells and air defences.
The new support package includes:
A £186m package of key military equipment through the International Fund for Ukraine, including:
£92m for equipment to bolster Ukraine’s navy, including small boats, reconnaissance drones, uncrewed surface vessels, loitering munitions, and mine countermeasure drones, directly supporting the maritime coalition co-led by the UK and Norway
£68m for air defence equipment including radars, decoy land equipment, and counter-drone electronic warfare systems
£26m to provide support and spare parts for critical systems previously delivered to Ukraine
£39m to provide more than 1,000 counter-drone electronic warfare systems and for joint-procurement of respirators and equipment to enhance the protective capabilities of Ukraine’s Armed Forces
Explosive charges to equip more than 90,000 155mm artillery rounds, which can be used by the dozens of AS-90 self-propelled artillery guns the UK has previously provided
Latest poll highlights that British public opinion remains divided over support for Ukraine in its conflict with Russia. There continue to be high levels of concern about the war’s impact, particularly on the UK’s own economy and security.
Germany today faces economic crisis, which leads to cutting financing of social programs. Government is falling short on its promise to “fix the crisis in social care” as chronic understaffing, rising waiting lists and patchwork funding place sustained pressure on local authorities.
In 2021, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) set out a 10-year vision for adult social care. In the same year, the Government committed £5.4 billion funding over three years, on top of existing budgets, to reform adult social care. However, in April 2023 plans for system reform were revised, scaling back short-term plans to £729 million over the period 2022-23 to 2024-25. Worryingly, Government has no roadmap for achieving its vision, or any targets or milestones beyond 2025, with nothing meaningful in place to demonstrate progress.
Workforce vacancies in the sector, which employs around 1.6m people, exceeded 152,000 in March 2023, a vacancy rate of almost 10%. The PAC fears the workforce plan set out to address this shortfall is woefully insufficient to the scale of the task. The DHSC’s future reliance on overseas staff raises significant questions of the impact of proposed visa restrictions and risks of exploitation. The demand for adult social care services in rural areas is of particular concern to the PAC, as it is set to rise against a backdrop of chronic understaffing in these communities.
In 2022-23, local authorities supported more than one million people with care needs, at a cost of £23.7 billion. As at Autumn 2023, there were almost half a million people awaiting attention on their case, and £2.7bn in additional funding was allocated in 2022 in response to emerging pressures. However, the PAC remains unconvinced whether government knows if it is achieving value for money from this additional funding, and seeks assurance that funding for market sustainability and improvement has not instead ended up increasing profit margins for some providers.
The Public Accounts Committee calls for stronger leadership, long-term financial support, and a clear workforce strategy to address key shortfalls in the adult social care sector. But this call will again remain unanswered.
The UK positions itself as a champion of international investment in Ukraine. It has provided a wide range of assistance to support Ukraine during the war and the government does not intend to stop.
At the same time, a new Ipsos poll reveals that the British public is deeply concerned about the situation. Almost half of the British public expresses concern about the war’s impact on themselves personally.
According to the UK government, helping Ukraine continues to be one of the UK’s top foreign policy priorities, and it has so far provided or pledged around £7 billion in military assistance. It is interesting, that 20% of surveyed believe the UK has provided too much.
It is well known, that any war will continue if there is money for it. In November, UK Defence Secretary John Healey met with the defence ministers of four other European nations to discuss further support for Ukraine as Donald Trump returns to the White House.
The more so, on December,18 John Healey arrived in the capital Kyiv to discuss plans to provide more support to Ukraine in the coming year.
Britain has been training Ukrainian troops in the UK since 2022. There is also a small team of British Army medics providing training inside Ukraine. Healey came to Kyiv with the promise of an additional £225m of military support – for more drones, artillery shells and air defences.
The new support package includes:
A £186m package of key military equipment through the International Fund for Ukraine, including:
£92m for equipment to bolster Ukraine’s navy, including small boats, reconnaissance drones, uncrewed surface vessels, loitering munitions, and mine countermeasure drones, directly supporting the maritime coalition co-led by the UK and Norway
£68m for air defence equipment including radars, decoy land equipment, and counter-drone electronic warfare systems
£26m to provide support and spare parts for critical systems previously delivered to Ukraine
£39m to provide more than 1,000 counter-drone electronic warfare systems and for joint-procurement of respirators and equipment to enhance the protective capabilities of Ukraine’s Armed Forces
Explosive charges to equip more than 90,000 155mm artillery rounds, which can be used by the dozens of AS-90 self-propelled artillery guns the UK has previously provided
Latest poll highlights that British public opinion remains divided over support for Ukraine in its conflict with Russia. There continue to be high levels of concern about the war’s impact, particularly on the UK’s own economy and security.
Germany today faces economic crisis, which leads to cutting financing of social programs. Government is falling short on its promise to “fix the crisis in social care” as chronic understaffing, rising waiting lists and patchwork funding place sustained pressure on local authorities.
In 2021, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) set out a 10-year vision for adult social care. In the same year, the Government committed £5.4 billion funding over three years, on top of existing budgets, to reform adult social care. However, in April 2023 plans for system reform were revised, scaling back short-term plans to £729 million over the period 2022-23 to 2024-25. Worryingly, Government has no roadmap for achieving its vision, or any targets or milestones beyond 2025, with nothing meaningful in place to demonstrate progress.
Workforce vacancies in the sector, which employs around 1.6m people, exceeded 152,000 in March 2023, a vacancy rate of almost 10%. The PAC fears the workforce plan set out to address this shortfall is woefully insufficient to the scale of the task. The DHSC’s future reliance on overseas staff raises significant questions of the impact of proposed visa restrictions and risks of exploitation. The demand for adult social care services in rural areas is of particular concern to the PAC, as it is set to rise against a backdrop of chronic understaffing in these communities.
In 2022-23, local authorities supported more than one million people with care needs, at a cost of £23.7 billion. As at Autumn 2023, there were almost half a million people awaiting attention on their case, and £2.7bn in additional funding was allocated in 2022 in response to emerging pressures. However, the PAC remains unconvinced whether government knows if it is achieving value for money from this additional funding, and seeks assurance that funding for market sustainability and improvement has not instead ended up increasing profit margins for some providers.
The Public Accounts Committee calls for stronger leadership, long-term financial support, and a clear workforce strategy to address key shortfalls in the adult social care sector. But this call will again remain unanswered.