Source · Select Committees · Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee
Recommendation 3
3
Accepted
The Government is focused on long-term reform of adult social care, but in order to...
Recommendation
The Government is focused on long-term reform of adult social care, but in order to get to the future it needs to save the sector from the brink of collapse. Covid-19 has highlighted the underlying structural challenges of rising demand, unmet need, and difficulties recruiting and retaining staff, and has also exacerbated them. On top of that, there are severe current pressures arising from increases in the National Living Wage and the National Minimum Wage, and from rising inflation. We strongly disagree with the former Minister for Local Government, Faith and Communities that adult social care has adequate funding currently, having received compelling evidence that there is an immediate need for additional funding. The Government should allocate additional funding this year through the adult social care grant, cover inflationary pressures and unmet care needs, and should announce this as soon as possible so that local authorities can plan how to cope best with the pressures they are facing. (Paragraph 21) Funding gap
Government response summary AI-generated
The government is making available more funding for adult social care through general taxation and increased Council Tax flexibilities, with up to £7.5 billion of additional funding over two years to support adult social care and discharge.
Summary of the government's response below — read the verbatim text to verify.
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government · verbatim extract
Accepted
The 2021 Spending Review settlement considered a wide range of pressures facing social care. However, we recognise that since then there has been increased short-term pressure on local authorities’ ability to deliver adult social care, resulting from inflation and other factors. Therefore, at the Autumn Statement 2022 the government listened to the concerns of local authorities and made up to £7.5 billion of additional funding available over two years to support adult social care and discharge - with up to £2.8 billion available in 2023–24 and up to £4.7 billion in 2024–25. Local authorities are expected to use the additional funding to go beyond meeting inflationary, wage and demographic pressures and to deliver tangible improvements in adult social care services, as outlined in the social care resources explanatory note. This increase in social care funding is part of an overall local government finance settlement (LGFS) which has grown in real terms in the last three spending reviews (2019–2024). Overall, the final LGFS for 2023–24 makes available up to £59.7 billion for local government in England, an increase in Core Spending Power of up to £5.1 billion or 9.4% in cash terms on 2022–23. The funding announced at Spending Review 2021 and the Autumn Statement follows a pattern of sustained government investment that has helped local authorities steadily increase their spending on adult social care, which reached £21.4 billion in 2021–22. This is an average increase of 2.5% per year in real terms between 2014–15 and 2021–22. The government further recognises the additional pressure that increases in energy bills is having on the sector. The Energy Bill Relief Scheme (EBRS) provided a discount on wholesale gas and electricity prices for all businesses and other non-domestic customers and applied to energy usage from 1 October 2022 to 31 March 2023. Further support will be provided via the Energy Bill Discount Scheme (EBDS), which following a review, has replaced the EBRS from 1 April 2023 until 31 March 2024. Under the new scheme, non-domestic consumers in Great Britain and Northern Ireland, including eligible care homes and other residential care settings, will continue to receive a per-unit discount to their energy bills.
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