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I have huge pleasure in being here this afternoon-one of my first public speaking engagements as a minister.  As you might have spotted, I am not Stephen Ladyman but I am the new minister responsible for social care including physical and learning disability, older peoples services, carers and children's and maternity services.

This is my fifth day in the job and I'm not yet an expert in this field of policy, but I was anxious to come and talk with you today because I think you are vital to delivering our vision for the future of social care, and as the new minister, I wanted to listen and hear how you think change can be best delivered in the future.

Now why do I say you're so important?  For three reasons:

Let me start with our approach to public sector reform. We can take the lead, as Government should, in establishing the strategic direction of travel. But we need all the stakeholders, people such as you but also, as importantly, people using services to contribute and participate. You can't manage and implement the change from Whitehall; we depend on all our partners to implement the changes needed. That's as true in police reform as it is in education or the reform of social care.

But second, there is our ambition, our values and principles for social care future.

I think there are incredibly valuable things that we need to hang onto at all costs. We have duties and responsibilities to others and we must never let go of them. There must be an understanding of what binds us rather than what separates us. In a world of inter-dependence, we cannot see difference, whether of disability, language, culture or age, as a reason for ignoring or patronising each other, where actually diversity is simply the flip-side of the fact that each of us is unique with something unique to offer.

The third point is what we know about the future. The inescapable fact is that social care is going top grow and grow in importance. By 2020, 30% of the population will be over 60, up from 20% today. By 2011, there will be 700,000 more disabled people over 60, 5.2 million disabled older people in total.

People in their 60s in 2020 will be one of the first generations  brought up with the NHS over the whole of their life-times. People will be increasingly confident about their right to good quality public services. Already people are 50% more likely to complain about bad service now than 5 years ago.

Now against that backdrop I want to argue Government alone simply cannot satisfy our country's future ambition for social services - and I would argue nor should it:

We have already come a long way over the last few years.

It is still less than forty years since home helps were part of the NHS rather than social care and were dispatched to help people get over a hospital stay. You remain important, providing personal and practical care for people coming out of hospital until they can get back on their feet.

But now the services you provide are different. Four years ago we published the National Service Framework for Older People set a target of improving the quality of life of older people by ensuring 30% of people receiving social services did so from home.  The target was met two years ahead of schedule. That's a huge change we've gone through.

In 1998, 60,700 households received intensive home care (22.8%).  By 2004, 87,100 households received intensive home care (30.1%).

So we are seeing a change in the way we provide support.

And you've been essential to that process.

Even when councils did assume responsibility for the home help service in the 1970s it was nothing like it is today-there really has been a transformation. From a service for cleaning, shopping and pension collection, you have become a service that is indispensable for thousands of people. They simply would not be at home today, were it not for you and your staff. Many would be in a care home against their wishes.

In some councils, a home help was a right of old age-a bit like your bus pass. Nowadays, people generally have to be at risk of not surviving at home before their council provides a service.  A big change from the days when a home help might arrive at someone's door to find they'd popped out to the pub or the hairdresser we now have a situation where a home carer, on getting no response, is more likely to find someone on the floor and in need of the emergency services.

So these are big changes and you should be very proud of what you've delivered over the past few years. So its very welcome that this is your first conference and I hope there is many more.

Because quality of life is not only about where you live. You can be miserable living in your own home. Living in isolation can herald depression. Recent research found that older people with depressive disorders are largely invisible within health and social care. I agree with the authors that it is shocking to learn that only 15% of older people suffering from depression severe enough to need care and treatment are receiving any kind of active management of their condition. That is only one in six! Around 40% of older people in care homes are suffering from clinical depression. For many it is the precipitating factor in their admission to a home in the first place.

People want support, choice, decision making powers just as you and I do.   We all want services tailored towards our own circumstances. Direct payments are one way of doing this - but for them to be successful requires a change in the way professionals think of people using services. There are still many people in the system that are risk averse - I am all in favour of management of risk, following a proper assessment of risk.

Nor have we started to tap the potential of technology in supporting people at home. Technology has changed most of our lives beyond recognition-it has the scope to transform how we meet people's care and support needs too. A combination of telecare and telemedicine could solve many of the problems associated with the risks of independent living. That's why the DH have put £80 million over 2 years from April 2006 into a Preventative Technology Grant to extend the benefits of new technology.

A lot of people I speak to in policy circles often talk about a goal of independence - in contrast to dependence. I actually think our target is inter-dependence. When we need 'personal care' our interdependent status is lost; somehow we cross an invisible line and become dependent and passive.

I am much more interested in people developing and maintaining their ability to control their lives and make choices and decisions, than simply whether they can boil an egg, hoover the carpet or wash their hair. That principle has to be our jumping-off point for the next point of our journey.

I think the long-term goal must be - control, choice and equality-with the responsibilities that brings. For some people those things will be harder to achieve. We need to consider the mechanisms that need to be in place to help people achieve their potential and exercise more choice.

That is what my predecessor Stephen Ladyman began to address when he issued the Green Paper about the future of adult social care. The main reason why direct payments and individualised budgets are so prominent in that is because they are about extending choice and extending control.  All of you here will know countless stories about people whose lives have been transformed by direct payments. This is what we are lucky enough to be in business to do, transform people's lives.

Now, you'd be right to tell me that we can achieve none of this without the staff - people are our main resource.

I agree.

We need more people, working in new ways, in partnership with people using services. People who work in social care can make a difference to people's lives. 

In 2001, we launched the first national recruitment campaign. By October 2002 there had been over 50, 000 calls to the helpline from people interested in pursuing a career in social work and we are on our way to recruiting the extra 5,000 staff we have promised to deliver by 2006. Although we know little about the vacancy and turnover rates in the independent sector, we do know that these rates are improving steadily in local authorities. Technology can and will make a difference-we can free up your staff on those short 'monitoring and medication' visits by better use of technology. 15-minute pop-ins is not the way to reduce social isolation - but using a conference facility on the telephone or an internet chat room to talk to others might be.

One of the myths circulating is that providers pay their staff very badly, less than the local supermarket. We need to nail those myths as part of our campaign for the future. More than money motivates people. Nationally, 50% of care workers earn more than the highest paid check out workers. I know that some of you have developed ways of recruiting and retaining good quality staff. You do this in countless ways, including minimum contracted hours, proper training, supervision, and flexible working. These good practices must spread. Rather than seeing direct payments as a threat the entrepreuner in all of us needs to consider how you can market your services to people using them. This is an opportunity for you over the next few years.

Conclusion

You are extremely important.

And the voice you can have is a large one. By the end of 2004 the Commission for Social Care Inspection (CSCI) registered 3,700 branches of agencies providing home care staff.  The independent sector is (82% and rising) replacing the dominance of the statutory sector. The Skills for Care annual report estimates the independent home care workforce  at 106,500 of whom 97,500 are hands-on, front-line care workers.

Your voice is significant and you are vital to the future.

Because Government alone cannot and should not deliver everything

Because the demand for social care in the future will rise and rise

And you're vital to the future because you, your initiative and your commitment are essential components if we're to deliver the vision we were elected to make manifest.

At the weekend, my father-in-law sent me a card of congratulations on my new job with a great quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson on the front:

'What lies behind us and what lies before us'

it said  'are tiny matters compared to what lies within us'

It reminded me of a letter a correspondent wrote to me the day he learnt that I had been appointed. He is a disabled man in his 40s with a young family. He uses a wheelchair and needs considerable personal and intimate care and support that he is not comfortable having from his wife and children. He speaks English as his second language. His council assessed him as eligible for community care services-and they agreed he needed male carers, able to meet his needs in ways that were compatible with his language and culture. He said that the home carers that came were not able to do this, were rarely male and the service lacked any continuity or regularity. He made a decision that he would have direct payments but it took 9 months for the council to organise them. In the meantime, he and his family made the decision to struggle on with no outside support because his experience of the home care service was so negative. He now has direct payments and a small team of appropriate male workers. His health and confidence have improved so much he is considering his potential to obtain some form of paid employment-knowing he can arrange his support so that he will be a reliable employee. I know that this is one case, and there are thousands more, is the key challenge to how we reform public services.

At the centre of our universe must be people using services, and you. I leave you with this thought. I also need to hear from you how we ensure those services are the best they can be.