Social care funding rise ‘should deliver tangible service improvements’, says government

An increase in adult social care funding next year should deliver “tangible improvements” to services, the government told councils today.

Authorities should use the 2023-24 package, which the government said amounted to a real-terms increase, to go beyond tackling inflationary pressures to addressing key sector challenges, according to the Department of Levelling Up, Housing & Communities (DLUHC).

These included “discharge delays, social care waiting times, low fee rates, and workforce pressures”, said the DLUHC, after the levelling up secretary, Michael Gove, announced the provisional local government settlement in a parliamentary statement today.

The settlement provides further details on the package announced in last month’s autumn statement by chancellor Jeremy Hunt, when he delayed, for two years, the cap on care costs and associated charging reforms, in order to release cash to help councils meet current pressures.

‘Government has listened’

Michael Gove (credit: HM Government)

In his statement, Gove said: “Adult and children’s social care services provide crucial support to care users and young people in need, and this proposed settlement provides significant additional funding for this key area of concern.

“Government has listened, and we know that many local authorities are already facing difficult decisions brought on by inflationary and demand pressures.”

The areas the DLUHC has slated for improvements in adult social care constitute either longstanding or increasing pressures on councils and providers:

• Workforce pressures – adult social care vacancies in England rose by 52% in the year to March 2022, while a recent Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS) survey found 94% directors felt their areas did not have enough staff to meet needs over the winter. The issue is widely linked to low pay, with the median hourly wage for independent sector care staff being £9.50 as of March, below over 80% of all job roles in the economy.
• Waiting times – according to ADASS, 81,000 people had been waiting for an assessment of their needs for at least six months as of August this year, almost double the number in November 2021. Rising numbers of social worker vacancies in councils are likely to be among the reasons for this.
• Council fee rates – these have been a longstanding issue for care home and domiciliary care providers. The Homecare Association recently calculated that the minimum price of an hour of home care would reach £25.95 next April, up 12% on the current level, mainly due to the planned rise in the national living wage. However, it said that “too many” councils paid far less than the true cost.
• Delayed discharges – according to NHS England, 13,364 people who were fit for discharge were in a hospital bed each day at the end of last month, up a quarter on the same time in 2021. This is in part due to a lack of adult social care, though also reflects inadequate capacity in the NHS.

Settlement ‘falls significantly short’

ADASS joint chief executive Cathie Williams said the settlement fell “significantly short” of the extra £7bn a year chancellor Jeremy Hunt had said the sector needed in his previous role as chair of the health and social care select committee.

She added: “It will help councils to reduce what could have been additional cuts to help deliver savings needed next year and in that context is welcome. But people should be under no illusion that it will address the vast amount of unmet, undermet and wrongly met needs or really establish social care as the essential service that we all depend on to live, to work and to care.”

In response to the proposed settlement, Local Government Association chairman James Jamieson said it would help councils deal with cost pressures.

However, he added: “Underlying and existing pressures remain for councils and many still face significant challenges when setting their budgets and trying to protect services from cutbacks.”

Concerns over dependence on council tax

County Councils Network finance spokesperson Carl Les also welcomed the settlement but raised concerns about its dependence on authorities increasing council tax.

“The increase in resources will go a significant way to easing the financial pressures facing councils next year but CCN member councils still face very tough budget decisions next year,” he said.

“Moreover, achieving the maximum increase in CSP is reliant on councils raising council tax by 5%. Any council tax rise during the current cost of living crisis is a difficult choice but is one the majority of our councils will need to take to ensure they can maintain vital frontline services.”