The annual Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS) budget survey report, published today, highlights the worsening crisis in adult social care funding.

ADASS are making an urgent plea for sustained and substantial additional funding to protect essential services for older and disabled people. Social care is expecting a £1.1bn funding cut this year, on top of ‘almost unendurable’ cutbacks in the past four years.

Responding to the findings, Sue Brown, Vice Chair of the Care & Support Alliance, said:

“Today’s figures confirm what we already know – that the care system is in worsening crisis.

“Chronic underfunding of adult social care has seen dramatic year-on-year rationing of support, excluding hundreds of thousands of older and disabled people from the care they desperately need, to get up, get dressed and get out of the house. This is also putting unbearable pressure on family carers.

“Councils have taken efficiency savings as far as they can. Essential services are now under threat.

“With an ageing population, more and more people are needing care. Failure to increase spending to meet this increasing need would be a disaster for disabled and older people, their carers, and the wider economy.

“The Government urgently needs to address the crisis in care funding to prevent the care system from total collapse in the next decade.”