On Tuesday 19 December, Sajid Javid, the Minister for Communities and Local Government, gave an announcement on the Local Government Settlement.

Caroline Abrahams, Charity Director at Age UK and Co-Chair of the Care and Support Alliance said,

“The Government’s decision not to invest extra funds in social care in the Settlement announced today means that we go into the Christmas break with real and mounting concern about what 2018 will bring for the millions of older and disabled people in need of care. The additional flexibility granted to councils to raise local taxes will not raise enough money to fill the growing funding gap, and what’s worse the areas where the need for care is greatest are likely to benefit from this measure the least. That’s because these are usually places of significant disadvantage where rates of disability are high but the tax base is low.

“The Government’s decision to produce a Social Care Green Paper in summer 2018 is thoroughly welcome but no substitute for addressing the funding shortfalls that are hurting older and disabled people now. Without an urgent injection of cash we worry that more care providers and care workers will quit and that the search for good, affordable care will become even more desperate in many areas than it already is.”