Social care to be funded by six per cent council tax

As recently reported, Communities Secretary Sajid Javid has confirmed that councils will be allowed to increase council tax by six per cent over the next two years in order to fund social care services.

Therefore, councils can introduce the social care precept ahead of schedule, which will see council tax increase by three per cent in 2017/18 and 2018/19.

Setting out the Local Government Finance Settlement for 2017/18, Javid stated that the move would help generate an additional £652 million by 2020, while councils will have access to a £240 million adult social care support fund, with the money cut from the New Homes Bonus.

Javid said the measure, when added to the £240 million taken from the New Homes Bonus, would mean £900 million extra for local authorities over the next two years to fund social care services.

This has led to criticism of no new money being made available to tackle the crisis. Much has been publicised about the current social care funding gap, with the Local Government Association recently warning that even if all councils imposed the full precept, it would still leave a funding gap of more than £2.6 billion by 2020.

Additionally, the National Care Association (NCA) has criticised the government, claiming that the ’quick fix’ has come far too late and will not fully address the problem.

Nadra Ahmed, chairman of the NCA, said: “Sadly, these proposals cannot begin to approach a solution to an endemic problem that threatens a care home sector already under threat from further austerity cuts.”