Dimenisons Cymru: Russ and Annalise’s feature on BBC news

Annalise Jeannette, supported by Dimensions Cymru in Cardiff, shared her experience to highlight what the low funding to the social care sector could mean to people with learning disabilities like her on BBC News Wales, in this article and on television.

Despite a recent 3.3% funding boost from the Welsh government intended to support local authorities in meeting national living wage, has not been reaching care providers like Dimensions Cymru.

In the article Annalise highlights the invaluable assistance provided for various activities, including attending medical appointments and shopping. Annalise expressed how crucial this support is, especially in alleviating her anxiety in unfamiliar situations.

While the pursuit of the real living wage for care workers remains a critical agenda for Welsh Labour, there are serious concerns about the current funding mechanisms and their effectiveness in reaching those on the frontline. If these issues are not addressed, stability and support may be at risk.

Russ Kennedy, Dimensions Cymru’s Managing Director appeared alongside Annalise on BBC News where he outlined the direct impacts which support providers will experience following increases to the Real Living Wage and NIC Contributions, sharing the key figures to show exactly how challenging the situation currently is for the social care sector.

“…we have a broad brush figure of about a million against a support worker budget of 12 million, a really simplified way of looking at that, is for one of the 12 months that we’ll be supporting people next year, and entire month at this point, there is no funding identified that we can be confident in.”

It’s available to watch here on BBC iPlayer until 6th Jan 2025.

(Annalise timestamp: 17mins 15 seconds & Russ timestamp: 19Mins 15 seconds)