How much social care does each country fund?

Key points

• There is wide variation in total public expenditure per capita (old age and working age adults). As of 2021, England remains by far the least generous – spending on average £352 per head, compared to £478 in Scotland, £494 in Wales and £550 in Northern Ireland.
• While England and Northern Ireland’s old age expenditure per head has remained relatively stable, Scotland’s old age expenditure has fallen considerably by 21% in the last 10 years. Wales has seen the biggest increase in spending in support for older people, with a 17% increase in real terms since 2020/21.

Across all four countries, England’s total public expenditure per capita on adult social care is considerably lower than in the other countries, particularly so for old age (see above chart). Expenditure for working age adults is relatively similar across all countries, however.

The above chart shows the total identifiable expenditure on social care. Although these figures are derived from the same HM Treasury source, it is worth noting they may not be directly comparable due to the integrated nature of the system in Northern Ireland and should be used for indicative purposes only.  

There is no source that can estimate with certainty the number of individuals who self-fund across the UK, and their experiences with social care services are not reported in a similar way to those who can access state-funded care.¹  This could be because of the different ways self-funders access and use care, as well as the complexity of defining self-funding across the varying social care settings.

The true number of self-funded recipients of domiciliary and care home support remains unknown across all four countries. However, data from 2018 estimates that England have the highest proportion of self-funders receiving residential, nursing, and domiciliary care, and Northern Ireland the lowest, as shown in the charts below. More up-to-date data from 2021/22 on estimates of self and state funders for England from the ONS suggest that 34.9% of care home residents are self-funders.² In the community care sector, they represent 25.8%.³ The community care sector here refers to domiciliary care services, extra care housing services, and supported living services.