Adult Social Care – CLG Chair responds to Budget

Clive Betts 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, 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."

Further information

• About Parliament: Select committees
• Visiting Parliament: Watch committees

Image: iStockphoto