So what is the big issue facing local government over the next few years? No, sorry Mr Pickles it’s nothing to do with weekly bin collections or whether people need planning permission to hoist the union flag.
Anyone familiar with the real challenges facing local government over the next two decades will know all about the Barnet Graph of Doom.
Though it sounds like a third-rate B movie from the 1950s, the Barnet Graph of Doom is in fact a PowerPoint slide showing that within 20 years, unless things change dramatically, the north London council will be unable to provide any services except adult social care and children’s services. The same problems are faced by all local authorities and that could mean a future with no libraries, no parks, no leisure centres – not even bin collections.
Indeed, as a Local Government Association report recently stated, social care could soak up the vast majority of council spending by 2020.
That’s right – just eight years from now.
This issue goes way beyond party politics and I wholeheartedly welcomed elements of the government’s recent white paper on social care. Andrew Lansley’s long overdue announcement was a step forward, but nowhere near enough to tackle the social care time-bomb.
The fact remains that good legislation scheduled to be implemented in 2015 is an empty promise without the resources that are needed to repair Britain’s broken care system.
The funding paper also unveiled on 11 July delays the decision on the resources needed in the care system and, in reviewing the work of the Dilnot Commission, the government has added further delay and uncertainty to tackling the question of how care can be paid for.
So if you own your own home, despite hollow promises, you are still at risk today of your care costs taking all of your savings, and there is no timescale for when government will stop these catastrophic costs faced by one in every 10 people.
In Birmingham not only do we face enormous risks from the government’s failure to tackle the funding of social care, we have the largest cuts to spending. We are already doing much innovative practice in our struggle not only to survive but to make an offer to our citizens that works despite the chaos of national government.
This is not about scoring party political points and I certainly welcome elements of the government announcement, particularly increased transparency from care providers and the emphasis placed on the control and entitlement that people will have in care.
Resolving how we as a country address the growing needs and costs for care is an extremely difficult issue. Councils have shown some of the answers but need to work within a system that meets the needs of the 21st century. We face an uncertain future, but that is nothing to the pressures on carers and people with high levels of care need. While we are critical of the failings of this government, we will not allow that criticism to limit the creativity and imagination that we will continue to show in order to develop adult social care as best we can to meet the needs of Birmingham.
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Steve Bedser is cabinet member for health and wellbeing on Birmingham city council
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What the Barnet Graph of Doom shows us is that, if we don’t want our elderly to die, en-mass, neglected, in their homes, or to die on the streets; and an explicit mass-culling is out of the question, we must increase substantially the size of the UK’s economy to meet the cost of their (our) care.
I have seen no one address this question: If the cost of a decent society is ‘x’ and the maximum rate we think we can tax people at is ‘y’ then the size of the economy must be at least ‘z’ – and we are going to do the following to ensure that the economy will get to this size. It is about time we began to think this way.
You could rephrase the question: If the cost of a decent society is ‘x’ and our current tax rate ‘y’ does not produce that amount, then we as a society will have to reconsider our rate of tax and/or what we spend our public money on.
Fact–everbody should have the right to good high quality care when required. It is the duty of public services to provide tat care where it can be regulated and staff trained to a high standard. It is also essnetail that staff are respected by their emplyers as oppose to being treated like numers–and also trained to a high standard. The way to address the Social Care challenges is to tax the high earners–The Bankers and cut the wages of Chief Executives and Mangers. Come on comrades I say we need to be brave as oppose to pandering to high earners and bankers.
I tend to look at things like elderly care from a financial point of view, but one which transcends the book-keeping type of approach that is common in government and local authority finance.
We have come to a point in time where saving for old age is not something that can reliably be done. The following are some of the hindrances:- (1) inflation, (2) low interest rates on savings, (3) unreliability of stock markets to produce “growth” in investment portfolios, (4) various means-testings throughout life, (5) what is called “realisation” risk – you can’t rely on being able to sell your assets for what you want to get for them when you need the money.
We, and it would appear, politicians of most parties are stuck, to varying degrees, in the mindset of “leave it to the market”. The public is not fully aware of the extent that the wealth of the country is being leached out into tax havens (and the pockets of the rich). It appears to be dogma of most politicians that the rates of income tax must never go down, a dogma which is reinforced by HM Treasury’s unwillingness to hypothecate taxes.
It seems to me to be calculable as to what a sensible cost of elderly care for the population is at any moment of time, on the basis of known rates of frailty and longevity. Inevitably, it is likely to increase with time, as the population ages. It is no use bemoaning the fact. The right thing to do is to prepare for it.
Many people considering these matters ignore the fact that the cost of care can only come out of the GDP of the year in which it is needed. If the cost, calculated as in the previous paragraph is 20% of GDP (I do not know the true figure), then 20% of GDP needs to be extracted from GDP, by way of taxes, NI contributions, interest or dividends, to pay for it in that year.
If the figure next year is 21%, so be it. An adjustment has to be made accordingly.
This is called Social Insurance, and I would bet that if people knew that 20%, or whatever, of government tax revenue paid for their care or would pay for it in the future (and they didn’t have to sell their houses), they would be content.
Clearly, Dilnott was something of a compromise, but I would have thought that it was better for care to be paid for throughout a working life than to have some unseemly scrabble of people trying to divest themselves of their assets towards the end of their lives, so as to avoid paying for care when the time comes.
It should be emphasised that this approach ought to be conducted at a national level. Because of people’s movement throughout the country, it is unreasonable for there to be a postcode lottery as to provision of care. Have local income tax, by all means, but, if you do, you will end up like the dog’s breakfast of the Eurozone, on a smaller scale, and you will surely have to change it.
Obviously, transitional measures are needed, possibly annual taxes on assets (like what used to be Schedule A) and so on. More imaginative ways of providing care are needed to help people look after their elderly relatives and to get away from the desperate and hugely expensive contract culture [on these matters, see my paper for the Fabian Society (http://www.fabians.org.uk/reforming-the-housing-market-a-landlords-view/)].
Of course, one would hope that people would recognise that they ought to act in good faith in claiming care on the basis of need. Checking this ought to be within the competence of local authorities and the budgetary aspects should not be such as to pervert the intention that people should be properly cared for, if the proportion of GDP allocated had been properly calculated.
Anthony Sperryn, 10/8/2012.
The link mentioned in my comment should read…..uk/reforming-the-housing-market-a-landlords-view/