The Chairman of the County Councils Network has warned that the government must rethink how it approaches the distribution of council funding.
This comes with the caution that councils look set to miss out on hundreds of millions of pounds worth of investment for vital care services, should they be expected to pick up the bill for the increase in the national living wage and care providers costs.
When looking at the last two local government funding settlements, investment has been distributed through the social care grant, as the government recognises the most severe spending pressures that councils are facing. In the recent Budget, the government announced that only £600 million of the £1.3 billion that is being committed will be distributed through this method, whilst the remainder will be set aside for a ‘targeted deprivation-based approach.’
This has led to new analysis from the County Councils Network suggesting that social care authorities within county and rural areas could be set to receive hundreds of millions of pounds less in funding compared to the previous approaches. With this in mind, the CCN has called for the government to rethink its approach to the distribution of funding, whilst also diverting some funding from the NHS to the social care sector.
By doing this, the increases in national living wage and national insurance could be further covered.
As part of his speech at the CCN Conference, CCN Chairman Cllr Tim Oliver said:
“Whether it’s the acute rise in children’s placement fees, care for working age adults, or escalating spend on SEND home to school transport, it is demand and market failure that is pushing councils of all shapes, sizes and political control to the brink.
“That’s why the government should rethink its approach.
“As a minimum, the government must increase the proportion of the £1.3bn dedicated to social care – to ensure all councils receive a fair share of resources.
“But with substantial new overheads created in social care delivery, the government should go further by diverting some of the £22bn increase in NHS funding to social care.
“Crucially, the government must not seek to change or redistribute any existing resources within the local government settlement.
“Because this would make a bad situation even worse for counties.”
Further measures that the CCN has suggested that a partial council tax equalisation should be implemented, whilst also committing to ensuring that no authority loses an unsustainable amount of resources.
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