County treasurers fear for adult social care in Budget
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Budget: The Chancellor George Osborn will deliver his second Budget this year in July
The Society of County Treasurers (SCT) has backed calls by directors of adult social care to increase their funding in line with promised NHS increases.
Adult social care departments in England are running out of room for efficiency savings – meaning they face a black hole of £420m this financial year, according to research published by the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services.
It found only 7% of directors are fully confident that planned savings can be met in 2016-17 and 5% in 2017-18.
Andrew Burns, president of the SCT and director of finance and resources at Staffordshire County Council, said: “NHS funding has increased by nearly 20% since 2010/11 and yet is still seen to be in crisis with a promise of £8bn extra by 2020.
“In contrast, funding for adult social care has decreased in cash terms by more than 10% and 30% in real terms over the same period and, with no protection for local government, further planned government grant reductions and capped council taxes further reductions lie ahead.”
He added that the statutory nature of much of the work of adult social care means inadequate funding for this service will impact on councils’ capacity to sustain discretionary services.
“Inadequate council funding overall will necessitate further reductions in all services and it is not possible to protect services that form such a significant proportion of total spend,” he said.
The body called on the government to revamp the system of funding for adult social care services in the forthcoming emergency budget planned for next month.
A statement said: “ADASS is calling upon the government to urgently ensure that social care funding is protected and aligned with the NHS, including making provision for the social care funding gap alongside the funding gap for the NHS.
“This is paramount to securing adequate health and wellbeing outcomes for individuals and their carers and to ensuring that councils do not run out of money.”
The report said adult social care budgets have suffered funding reductions totalling £4.6bn over the past five years, representing 31% of real terms net budgets.
This year, it said, budgets will fall by a further £0.5bn in cash terms, and combined with the growth in older and disabled people, an additional £1.1bn needs to be found to maintain current service levels.
The ADASS survey found that social services directors see increased prevention and integration as their top two areas for savings for this year, next and beyond.
Photo (cropped): HM Treasury, Flickr
