Now you see it - Now you don't.
The Javid Jive or Sajid Shuffle
The whole country, including believe it or not a lot of conservative councillors and MP's (yes I know that is hard to believe) know that Social Care is in a crisis. As the proportion of old people and others needing care rises the proportion of people in work falls. A "working age" population that would have fallen to a critical point without immigration. Councils are running out of money.
Everyone expected even a Conservative Chancellor to mention Social Care in his "Autumn" Budget, but he didn't, so the expectation fell on Sajid Javid to step up a come to the rescue.
The story begins with Eric (*** Controller) Pickles, who thought of a cracking wheeze called New Homes Bonus, a bribe to encourage councils to build more homes, not bad in itself but the way it works it rewards Southern councils twice as much as us in the North. He decided to pay for it by taking money from councils, money that was allocated on a basis of need. Now along comes Javid he decides to cut the New Homes Bonus, to give money to the councils who he just took it from to claim he is funding Social Care. Now you see it now you don't.
His second wheeze also goes back, this time to George (the well paid speaker) Osbourne. He decided to increase the minimum wage, to a level that was a bit nearer to, but not quite, a living wage. Again something that we can all applaud, but one consequence was that George saved all the money he was paying in Tax Credits, money he used to fund more tax cuts for his pals. This meant that the cost of Social care increased (to pay the new minimum wage), in Kirklees case about £2m. To pay for that we were allowed to put Council Tax, that you pay, up by 2% raising an amount that does not pay for the increase in Minimum wage. This year he is now saying we can put council tax up by another 3% (on top of the 2% he already allowed, making it a total of 5%) with another 5% next year.
So ignoring all the money they already collect in income tax, VAT, Fuel duty, tax on booze, corporation tax (apart from his pals who don't pay)cigarettes, insurance etc. etc. he is forcing Council tax up be 10%. The real tragedy is though is that will be nowhere enough to pay for the rising cost of Social Care.
Just add salt into the wounds, despite announcing cuts to the money going to individual schools he has also told us he is cutting the £5.5m Educational Support Grant that Kirklees gets to supply services to schools.
