Debate contribution: Adult Social Care
Debate contribution by Mr Mike Nesbitt on .
- MLA
- Mr Mike Nesbitt
- Party at the time
- Ulster Unionist Party
- Date
- 27 January 2025
- Type
- Debate contribution (made as a minister)
- Business
- Oral Answers to Questions
- Heading
- Adult Social Care
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 4759056
Read the official Assembly record
Text
I thank the Member for her question. Following the publication of the consultation report, the social care collaborative forum was established with the intention of working with my Department to implement the proposed reforms. The forum provides the cross-sectoral leadership that will be critical to adult social care reform. While it is expected that full reform of the scale necessary will only be deliverable in the longer term, we are also trying to make progress in a number of key areas. Achievements to date include the establishment of the social care fair work forum, which aims to gather evidence to support additional investment in the sector, and the commitment to make it a real living wage sector, which is a policy that the Member will be aware that I announced earlier this month. I also made available additional funding in the financial year 2024-25 to help stabilise and maintain independent sector provision. The implementation of CareLineLive in three of the health trusts is enabling the better utilisation and deployment of the trusts' home-care services. They do this by creating greater line of sight of home-care capacity on specific schedules and quickly identifying areas where there are capacity issues and where recruitment activity needs to be focused. The completion of a review of the impact of trusts' early review teams resulted in 2,884 strategic planning and performance group-funded hours per week being recycled into the system between October 2023 and September 2024. It is intended to roll out reviews across all programmes of care in the next financial year. A new social care workforce strategy was launched on 12 December. Among other things, it sets out how we will attract, grow, retain and develop the skilled staff necessary to deliver high-quality social care. To deliver that stronger, strategic vision, a whole-system approach to design and delivery will be required.
308 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
Assessment
Jev’s structured answers met the documented threshold for “not flagged”.
- Overall probability that the activity is being used to promote, exploit or escalate an identity-based controversy: 0.02 (flagging needs at least 0.70; at or below 0.30 is not flagged).
- None of the five culture-war criteria was met (each was below 0.60).
- Assessed as legitimate policy scrutiny (0.78).
- No identity-based framing was identified (1.00).
- The overall probability was at or below the not-flagging threshold.
This is an AI-generated assessment of the text, made against published criteria. It is not a finding of fact about the MLA or their intentions. The Assembly record itself is the fact.
Jev’s structured answers
| Question | Probability | Met? |
|---|---|---|
| Identity framing | 0.02 | No |
| Sectarian or communal antagonism | 0.01 | No |
| Cultural grievance politics | 0.01 | No |
| Dog-whistle messaging | 0.01 | No |
| Controversy escalation | 0.02 | No |
| Legitimate policy scrutiny | 0.78 | Yes |
| Overall judgement | 0.02 | At or below not-flagging threshold |
| Option | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-based framing (chosen) | 1.00 |
| Reports or questions it | 0.00 |
| Criticises or condemns it | 0.00 |
| Adopts it | 0.00 |
| Subject | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-related subject | 0.86 |
| Disability (including neurodivergence and mental health), disabled people and disability or sickness benefits | 0.12 |
| Gender, sexuality, abortion and related social issues | 0.01 |
| Sexism, misogyny, ageism and other equality groups | 0.01 |
| Flags, emblems, symbols, names and memorials | 0.00 |
Assessed 21 October 2026 at 11:48 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.
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