The social care precept is not the long term solution to bridging funding gaps in social care, writes leader of Bury council Rishi Shori

The current system of funding for social care in England is broken. There is nothing particularly surprising in that statement. A growing, ageing, population living longer with multiple, complex needs is placing greater strain on a social care system that has been starved of resource following six and a half long years of austerity.

Spending on social care by central government has fallen by £5bn in that time. It is now anticipated that there will be a social care funding gap of almost £3.5bn nationally by 2020/21.

But what is the actual impact of all of this?

Firstly there has been a 25 per cent reduction in those receiving any form of state support for their care since 2010. Almost 90 per cent of local authorities are now only providing care for those who meet the ‘critical’ or ‘substantial’ need criteria. According to an English Longitudinal Study of Ageing for Age UK there are almost one million people who have difficulties with the basic activities of daily living (such as dressing or cleaning themselves) who now receive no formal or informal help at all.

The impact on the National Health Service is also huge. Every one pound of disinvestment in social care produces 35p of costs pressures for the NHS. The lack of infrastructure in the community, the length of time for social work assessments being undertaken and a simple lack of beds in nursing and residential care homes is leading to delayed discharges and bed blocking at record levels, sapping resource from an already stretched NHS.

Despite the above it appears that the mature debate required for the future funding of social care seems farther away than ever.

The issue was completely (and surprisingly) ignored in the new chancellor’s first autumn statement. Following the subsequent public outcry the government introduced two measures that it believes will ameliorate the social care funding crisis (at least in the very short term, it hopes).

First, government will allow councils to introduce a social care precept of up to 3 per cent (up from the current maximum of 2 per cent) for a period of 2 years (this will be on top of any council tax rises).

Second, government will top slice funding derived from the New Homes Bonus to create an additional £240m pot to support social care funding. Colleagues familiar with local government finance will know that this is not new money but in fact recycled from funds previously given to councils.

Government hope that this will inject a further £900m into social care spending but the consensus is these measures will go nowhere near plugging the gap that is anticipated between now and 2020. A ‘sticking plaster to fix a broken leg’ as one colleague described it to me.

The social care precept is not the long term solution to bridging the funding gaps that are swiftly becoming chasms in local authority budgets across the country. Wealthier parts of England that have local authorities with higher council tax bases will generate more money per head of population than poorer areas where demand for services is actually higher. This will serve to entrench the funding gap between rich and poorer areas and exacerbate the post code lottery which means that the level of care you receive will depend on where you live not what you need.

Forcing local authorities to increase taxation for their local populations, particularly in areas of deprivation could potentially exacerbate poverty in challenging economic times given that many local authorities have had to dramatically scale back council tax support schemes.

The creation of a £240m social care grant funded from monies that were previously allocated to the New Homes Bonus will actually make funding issues worse for some local authorities. Some of my neighbouring Greater Manchester authorities stands to lose millions from their budgets from the changes to the New Homes Bonus scheme.

What is the answer? Greater integration between health and social care can produce efficiencies and better outcomes but that can only take us so far. We will not be able to innovate our way out of this crisis.

Strong leadership and cross party consensus is required. It is obvious that more funding is desperately needed system as demand continues to increase. The real question is where this funding comes from? Does the state increase it spending on social care from the measly one per cent of GDP that it stands at now or are citizens going to be required to formally plan (and save) for their elderly care as they are required to do for their pension provision?

What is clear is that a dramatic policy shift is needed and needed fast to avoid a serious condition becoming terminal.

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Councillor Rishi Shori is leader of Bury Metropolitan Borough Council. He tweets at @CllrRShori

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