LGA Responds To ADASS Budget Survey 2017
Responding to the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services’ budget survey 2017, Chairman of the Local Government Association’s Community Wellbeing Board, Cllr Izzi Seccombe, said:
“This survey shows that the £2 billion of extra funding announced in the Spring Budget, while helpful to councils in meeting some short term pressures, is not a long-term solution and still leaves councils facing a £2.3 billion funding gap by 2020.
“It also demonstrates that councils are doing all they can to protect social care budgets, but inevitably given the scale of reductions in funding they have faced since 2010, along with the growing costs and demand for social care, and with the wider pressures across local government, further savings need to be made.
“The report is also significant in highlighting that the financial pressures in 2017/18 in providing support for working age adults with learning disabilities are now greater than providing care for older people. This shows it is important to ensure any solution for social care is about more than just caring for elderly people.
“The Government should set out in detail its proposals at the earliest opportunity for how it will close the funding gap and deliver a long-term sustainable funding solution for social care.
“Adult social care is at a tipping point, and unless urgent action is taken we will continue to see more and more of the consequences of underfunding that we have seen in recent years, particularly care providers either handing back contracts to councils or ceasing trading altogether