Chancellor George Osborne’s comprehensive spending review (CSR) has done little more than “paper over the cracks” in adult social care, a report by thinktank International Longevity Centre – UK (ILC-UK) has said.
The paper, titled ‘The end of formal adult social care’, said that the outlook for adult social care and domiciliary care looked “bleak”. It added that approximately 1.86 million people aged 50 or over currently had unmet care needs.
The report found that local authorities with the most elderly people were likely to raise less money from Osborne’s 2% social care levy on council tax than those councils with fewer elderly people.
The report explained: “In Lincolnshire’s East Lindsey… where 30% of people are aged over 65, a 2% rise would bring in just under £30 per older person per year. By contrast, in Richmond Upon Thames, where just 15% of people are aged over 65, the rise would bring in an additional £95 per older person per year.”
ILC-UK added that not all councils would decide to raise taxes, and agreed with fellow think tank The King’s Fund that the 2% levy could raise as little as £800 million, instead of the £2 billion which Osborne previously predicted.
The exact amount raised wouldn’t be discovered until the end of the parliament, “by which time it may be too late” it said.
Adult social care had faced real-terms funding cuts of “around 9% to 14%” the report said.
If real-terms cuts continued, UK expenditure on care as a proportion of GDP would fall to 1% by 2020. This would put the UK “firmly in the bottom half of the OECD league table” for spending on adult social care.
It would also result in a “polarisation” of care, with private care provided “for those that can afford it” and a “rising reliance on informal carers and increasing unmet needs for those that can’t”.
ILC-UK took data from 326 councils when conducting research for the report.
The new social care precept of 2% on council tax was introduced last month during Osborne’s CSR.
Osborne said the levy would bring nearly £2 billion extra into the social care sector. Critics, however, have argued that the money raised will not adequately compensate for rising costs associated with the national living wage and low local authority fees.
Reference : Health Investor
