Tax increases urgently needed to rescue adult social care, warn councils

Increasing income tax or National Insurance (NI) contributions must be urgently considered by the Government to rescue the future of adult social care, councils have warned.

The Local Government Association (LGA) said the current system is at "breaking point" and has drawn up its own blueprint for reforming the sector to be put forward by the government in its delayed social care green paper.

The LGA says that despite recent cash injections by the Government, adult social care services still face a funding gap of £3.5bn by 2025.

Cllr Ian Hudspeth, chairman of the LGA’s Community Wellbeing Board, said: “Work to find a long-term funding solution for adult social care has been kicked into the long grass by successive governments for the past two decades and has brought these vital services to breaking point.

“That is why the LGA took action and launched its own adult social care green paper to start the desperately-needed debate around the future of care. The responses we have had make it clear beyond doubt that there is universal agreement that the current situation is unsustainable and is failing people on a daily basis.”

A poll commissioned by the LGA found NI increases were the most popular choice to raise funds for better care, with 56 per cent in support. Changes to income tax were the second most popular option, with 49 per cent in favour of the idea.

The results, along with submissions from 540 organisations, councils and people who use services, are being released at the National Children and Adult Services Conference in Manchester.

Time for answers

It comes days after health secretary Matt Hancock said he was attracted to a plan put forward by a joint select committee of MPs in the summer. Under this scheme, all workers over the age of 40 would pay a levy that goes into a fund earmarked for social care. The MPs pointed to the system in Germany, where the levy is 2.5 per cent of incomes and is charged on workers and those who receive a pension.

Cllr Hudspeth added: “Now is the time for answers. And every day that is spent further defining the problem and consulting on changes that only really tinker at the edges of the debate, is another day in which people’s lives are not being lived to the full.”

Voluntary Organisations Disability Group (VODG) described the Chancellor's Autumn Budget settlement as “short sighted” with the financial plans leaving the sector “perilously under-funded” and people unable to access services and support.

Describing the LGA's report as a 'welcome contribution', VODG chief executive Dr Rhidian Hughes said: “The evidence for significant and sustainable reform of adult social care is overwhelming and today’s report from the LGA is a welcome contribution. We need central government leaders to work together, cross-party, to give the millions of older and disabled people who rely on essential services certainty about the care and support they are entitled to receive.

“It is time now for central government to act. The often talked of, but never seen, green paper, should be brought forward without further delay.”

Crumbling system

According to Sally Copley, director of policy and campaigns at Alzheimer’s Society, people with dementia are the biggest users of adult social care services.

She said: "Our helpline is inundated with calls from families at the mercy of this crumbling system. Someone in the UK develops dementia every three minutes, and it’s impossible to tell which of us will need costly support in future.

"While the Government must properly fund the system, we can also chip in for social care as we do for the NHS - either via a new approach to taxation or some other way of pooling risk across society, to end the injustice in the current system that leaves people with dementia facing financial ruin or going without.”

For more information on the LGA's own green paper 'The lives we want to lead' visit: https://futureofadultsocialcare.co.uk/