Council overlooks unpaid carers, says campaign group

Unpaid carers are overlooked and neglected by Brighton and Hove City Council, according to a campaign group.

Leo Cleary, from the National Unpaid Carers Union and Forum (NUCUF), spoke out at a carers roundtable in Brighton last week.

Mr Cleary said that the council was “neglecting the backbone of social care” – not least by failing to publish a long-promised “unpaid carers strategy”.

This risk is that taxpayers end up footing the bill if unpaid carers become so burnt out or disillusioned that they give up, leaving the council to provide the care instead.

Mr Cleary said: “Unpaid carers are the invisible workforce propping up a system that would collapse without them.”

His remarks were prompted in part because the council website said that the carers strategy was “currently being refreshed for launch in June 2024”.

One of those at the roundtable said that, at a council meeting last July, the Greens called on Labour for more help for unpaid carers in Brighton and Hove.

More than 20,000 act as unpaid carers in Brighton and Hove alone, according to the most recent census. Without their dedication, the council would have to spend many millions of pounds more each year.

Mr Cleary said that the council’s continued delay in publishing an up-to-date strategy reflected a “wider national disregard” for the millions of people providing unpaid care across the country.

He believed that the lack of a strategy locally mirrored growing national concern over how councils were managing their responsibilities to carers amid a deepening social care crisis.

Without the unpaid support of those voluntary carers, councils across the country would be expected to fund a sum estimated to be more than £160 billion a year.

Mr Cleary said: “Across the country they save the NHS and local authorities billions every year.

“Yet here in Brighton and Hove we can’t even get a clear answer on a strategy that was supposedly ready two years ago.

“It’s emblematic of the wider failure to treat carers as a priority rather than an afterthought.”

Mr Cleary said that he had written to the relevant council cabinet member, Labour councillor Mitchie Alexander, seeking urgent clarity on a number of points.

He asked why the strategy had not been brought to the cabinet, what consultation – if any – had taken place with carers since 2024 and when a revised document could realistically be expected.

He said: “The full picture is worrying. If any other essential service had missed such a critical deadline, questions would have been asked immediately. Carers, on the other hand, are expected to just carry on quietly.

“This isn’t just a local issue – it speaks to a national pattern where carers’ needs are acknowledged in speeches but ignored in practice.”

Without an up‑to‑date strategy, campaigners said, Brighton and Hove was operating without a clear plan for the support that carers need most urgently: respite, financial assistance, mental health provision and long‑term sustainability.

Mr Cleary added: “This isn’t a bureaucratic delay – it has real consequences for people who are already stretched to breaking point.

“In a country where ministers constantly talk about valuing carers, the lived reality is a patchwork of missed deadlines, outdated plans and political indifference.

“Brighton and Hove has an opportunity to lead by example – but at the moment it is falling behind.”

Councillor Alexander, the council’s cabinet member for communities, equalities, public health and adult social care, said: “We had planned to share this strategy sooner and apologise for the delay.

“The work was paused temporarily partly as a result of the recommissioning process for the carers hub.

“A draft has now been presented to stakeholders and carers as part of our ongoing consultation and we expect significant progress in this area over the coming weeks.”