Social care funding
Social care funding problems will worsen without additional help says Local Government Association
Local Government Association (LGA) states that rises in council tax will not resolve social care funding crisis.
In the Autumn spending review, the government allowed all councils to raise council tax by 1.99% and allowed those with social services responsibilities to raises council tax by an additional 2% in 2016/7 provided that 2% was used to fund social care.
Analysis by the Local Government Association states that this further 2% council tax increase will raise about £372m in total for social care.
But the LGA points out that it will cost councils about £330m to implement the new national living wage from April 2016 and that the core grant to local government to run all services has been cut by £2.5 billion.
The Chair of the LGA, Nick Forbes, is reported as saying that social care services are already at "breaking point."
Austin Thornton, head of the community care department at Wrigleys said: "It is inevitable that hard pressed local council staff will make errors. Social care users can both be sympathetic but should also insist that their legal rights are respected."
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If you would like to discuss any aspect of this article further, please contact Lynne Bradey on 0114 267 5584. To keep up to date with further updates from the Wrigleys Health & Care team, you can follow on Twitter here The information in this article is necessarily of a general nature. Specific advice should be sought for specific situations. If you have any queries or need any legal advice please feel free to contact Wrigleys Solicitors. |
February 2016
