The LGA at this weekend’s Conference launched the Adult Social Care Booklet asking ‘What’s next for Adult Social Care?”
In this booklet, the authors look at what ageing means as well as how to deal with it. As Cllr Richard Kemp points out, “In essence we believe that we as individuals and society as a whole need to be far clearer about how we prepare for our final years. The fact is that we can all do more. The healthier and more positive that we are the more we can stave off and then cope with illness. The more that we have been able to save (and as Liberal Democrats we recognise that not everyone is a position to save) the more options we have for lifestyle choices.”
With town halls across the country setting their final budgets and council tax levels over the next few weeks, extensive research by the LGA reveals:
- 147 out of England’s 152 social care authorities are considering or have approved an adult social care precept in 2018/19. This will raise an extra £548 million in total to pay for social care services this year. The LGA is warning this will be wiped out by the cost of paying for the Government’s National Living Wage. Councils also face the risk of having to pay at least £400 million in back-pay liabilities for sleep-in carers.
- 108 of these councils (71 per cent) will be increasing general council tax by 2.95 per cent or above. In total, general council tax increases will raise a further £584 million for local services in 2018/19. This compares to core central government funding to councils being cut by £1.4 billion (28 per cent) this year alone.
- 64 councils (42 per cent) are considering or have approved increasing council tax by 5.99 per cent (2.99 per cent general increase plus 3 per cent social care precept) in 2018/19.
- 75 social care councils (49 per cent) will be unable to levy any social care precept in 2019/20 when services caring for the elderly and disabled will face an annual funding gap of £2.2 billion. Councils have been able to front-load social care precept increases by up to 3 per cent in both 2017/18 and 2018/19. However, the total social care precept allowed in the three years to 2019/20 cannot exceed 6 per cent.
You can download the booklet here.