Give the social care minister some status

According to a "senior government source", that ubiquitous character with the ear of journalists and a convenient lack of fingerprints, care services minister Ivan Lewis needs to shut his trap. "If he can't concentrate on his day job," the source apparently told lobby reporters last week, "he'll soon find himself without one."

There was a time when you could be pretty sure that "senior government source" meant the prime minister's spokesman. These days, it seems to be a flag of convenience for anybody above the pay grade of press officer in a middling Whitehall department. In this instance, however, we can probably take it that HMS Lewis's bows have been well and truly fired across by guns not unadjacent to 10 Downing Street.

The cause of this salvo? An article Lewis wrote in a Sunday newspaper, talking of "10p-tax-type mistakes" and saying that, if necessary, serious consideration should be given to asking higher earners to pay more tax. "We can still win the next election," he wrote, "but only if we are clear about the nature of the challenges and emerge with solutions that are sufficiently bold to cut through the cynicism of an angry and disappointed electorate."

You can see why the No 10 crockery may have been at risk. And Lewis has form: in March, he warned that Labour was losing touch with voters; in May, he said the government owed the electorate an apology. At that point, even before the latest indiscretion, one political diarist was quipping: "Anybody call a taxi for Ivan Lewis?"

There may or may not be a reshuffle in the coming weeks as part of Gordon Brown's fightback. Lewis may or may not pay the price for his outspokenness as part of such a reshuffle. But either way he is living exceedingly dangerously: even if he survives, it's hard to imagine he'll ever be Mr Popular around Team Brown.

Why does this matter? It matters because: a) Lewis's role is of critical importance, way beyond the absurdly low status of his job title as undersecretary of state; and b) as it happens, and by common consent, he is rather good at it.

Save for a few years earlier in this government, responsibility for social care has always been left with a junior minister. Lewis, with a background in voluntary-sector care provision, is widely held to have been Labour's best performer in the job and to be at least on par with the most favourably remembered Tories, John Bowis (1993-96) and Sir George Young (1979-81). He is certainly popular with the social care troops: "He can talk their language and actually get ahead of them," says one close observer, not a senior government source. "There are some who never caught up with the language at all."

Popularity may not be all - and may even be a negative in a minister judged to be "going native" - but it matters hugely when the individual is spearheading not only the drive to personalise public services, where social care is blazing a trail, but also the public consultation on reform of the care and support system, described by Brown as nothing less than "a debate that will affect every family and shape the kind of society in which we live".

It would be entirely understandable if Lewis, at health since 2006 but a minister since 2001, was a tad cheesed off that he was batting for the government on these two vital fronts while still ranked only a junior. So the solution seems obvious: upgrade the role to minister of state and give social care and Lewis the status they both deserve. It might not shut him up, in fact it almost certainly wouldn't, but it would make the day job worth concentrating on that bit more.

· David Brindle is the Guardian's public services editor.