The Health Foundation responds to social care funding announcement

Anita Charlesworth, Director of Research & Economics at the Health Foundation said: ‘While the additional £240m from the new homes bonus is welcome, even combined with precept increases it won’t come close to filling the £2.4bn gap in social care funding for next year.

‘Rather than providing an urgently needed increase, the announced changes to the council tax precept will in fact raise slightly less funding overall.

‘Relying on council tax precepts to plug the gap in social care funding will exacerbate inequalities. This year the 10 most affluent local authorities will raise almost 50% more per head from the precept than the 10 least affluent, where the need for social care funding is greater. The new homes bonus funding must be targeted to address these inequities.

‘Regardless of these measures, thousands more people will be denied access to the care they need and this is far from an acceptable solution.’

Media contact
Creina Lilburne
creina.lilburne@health.org.uk
020 7257 8027

Notes to editors

The following scatter graph and map compare the money raised by local authorities per head by the council tax precept (2016/17) with the number of people claiming pension credits in those local authorities. The bar chart shows the change in money raised from the council tax precept until 2019/20 based on today’s proposed changes.