, Chair of the Communities and
Local Government (CLG) Committee, has responded to the
Chancellor’s Budget announcement on adult social care funding.
, Chair of the Communities and
Local Government (CLG) Committee, said: “The
Chancellor’s commitment of money to adult social care is welcome
but the £1bn for 2017-18 falls well short of the £1.5bn the CLG
Committee recommended was necessary to plug the gap in funding
for the next year and provide adequate relief from the immediate
pressures faced by local care services. For the following years
up to 2020, the Government should commit to getting a true
picture of what is required by helping the National Audit Office
(NAO) determine the level of funding the Government will need to
find for 2018/19 and 2019/20.”
“The Government should provide explicit confirmation
that the funding today is new money. From the Budget documents it
is not clear this is the case. The announcement of a Green Paper
on social care in the long term is welcome but to provide an
effective solution to the challenges for our social care system
this should be part of an urgent review, undertaken on a
cross-party basis”.
Estimates for the ‘funding gap’ in adult social care range from
£1.3 billion to £1.9 billion in 2017-18 and £1.1 billion to £2.6
billion in 2019-20 (see p.16 of the CLG Committee’s Adult Social
Care Pre-Budget report).
On Saturday 4 March, the CLG Committee published the
Pre-Budget report for its Adult Social Care inquiry. The
Committee will consider the issues of long-term funding further
in the main report from their Adult Social Care inquiry, which
will be published in the coming weeks.
