CARE CRISIS WILL DIVERT £1 Billion
The escalating cost of caring for the elderly means councils will have to divert £1.1 billion from other services like fixing potholes, new analysis shows. Councils in England will see their core government funding cut by 8.8 per cent in 2015/16, following the Local Government Finance Settlement.
However, the LGA has warned that cuts for services the majority of people use are likely to be much bigger because local authorities will have to find extra money from shrinking budgets to meet the rising cost of caring for the elderly and disabled.
Analysis shows that in the next financial year (2015/16) councils will have to find £1.1 billion from other service budgets to continue protecting adult social care spending in cash terms. It follows a £900 million hit taken by other services to help plug adult social care funding last year.
The analysis is based on current spending patterns, which show councils have consistently been protecting spending on adult social care at a time when the elderly population continues to rise and local services have faced the biggest and most sustained cuts in funding since the war.
The LGA is warning that if the crisis in adult social care funding is not addressed, councils will have little money left for any other services by the end of the decade.
Chair Cllr David Sparks said: "Even with councils pulling out the stops to shield social care from the cuts, our vulnerable elderly and disabled are seeing some support scaled back and waiting times grow when they press the call button.
"It is not enough for government to keep plastering over the cracks with short term fixes. We urgently need a longer term solution that puts social care on a sustainable footing. Failure to do so will deprive our elderly of the care they deserve, create additional pressure on the NHS and push other local services over the edge".
From Local Government Association
