Fixing UK social care will be biggest challenge yet for Louise Casey
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Troubleshooter for four previous prime ministers is charged with saving troubled national care sector. She is the no-nonsense civil servant from Portsmouth who was called upon by four prime ministers to tackle deep-rooted social issues, including rough sleeping, antisocial behaviour, victims’ rights and troubled families.
Now Louise Casey has been tasked by a fifth to chair an independent commission into adult social care. Her mission? Develop a plan to save the sector. Lady Casey must build a consensus around a new national care service able to meet the needs of millions of older and disabled people for decades to come. It will be her toughest challenge yet.
Casey, a crossbench peer and go-to troubleshooter for governments of all stripes, has never been shy about getting stuck into thorny issues – or speaking truth to power. “If No 10 says bloody ‘evidence-based policy’ to me one more time, I’ll deck them,” she once said in a speech.
She became a deputy director of the homeless charity Shelter at the age of 25 and was made head of the government’s rough sleepers’ unit in 1999, where she successfully led the strategy to reduce the numbers of people living on the streets by two-thirds.
Casey went on to head the national antisocial behaviour unit, the Respect taskforce and the Troubled Families programme. She also served as the UK’s first victims’ commissioner. More recently, she produced an excoriating report on the culture of the Metropolitan police, finding institutional racism, sexism and homophobia across the force, after the murder of Sarah Everard.
