England’s overstretched and creaking adult social care services need urgent government intervention to stabilise them financially as rising costs and demand play havoc with council budgets, care bosses have warned.
The financial challenge facing adult social care continued to be “as bad as it has been in recent history”, the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (Adass) said, and services are under “intolerable pressures”.
Four out of five local authorities were on course to overspend their adult social services budgets, while more than a third had been forced to tear up existing savings plans and impose a fresh round of cuts mid-way through the year, an Adass survey found.
“These are not the conditions for adult social care to thrive. These are not the conditions under which the new government’s proposed national care service can hope to succeed,” said Adass’s president, Melanie Williams.
There would be reduced levels and choice of services as a result of the cuts, Adass said. About 500,000 people are on “waiting lists” for care assessments, while councils are struggling with growing numbers of complex care cases – often following discharge from hospital – and persistent staff shortages.
Adass said that while it accepted the government’s adult social care ambitions would take time to realise, it was “clear that in the short term things are going to get worse before they get better” and action was needed to stabilise the system.
The Adass survey came after warnings by charities providing care for adults with learning disabilities, severe autism and complex needs that they face “existential” challenges as a result of soaring wage and national insurance (NI) bills.
There are fears councils that commission care services will be unable to fund contracted care providers’ rising costs. Councils received a 3.2% funding boost at the budget while provider costs are likely to rise by up to 9% next April, when the national living wage goes up by 6.7%, and NI wage thresholds are lowered.
Although an extra £600m for adult and children’s social care was announced in the budget, this is unlikely to cover wage costs, councils have said. Unless wage increases were funded, care services would have to reduce, Adass warned.
One adult social care director responding to the survey described the situation as “the toughest financial challenges the council has ever faced”. Another said its financial predicament had “the potential to break the organisation”.
Top-tier councils are already spending as much as 70-80% of their annual revenue budget on adults and children’s social care – up from about 50% a decade ago – and say costs in these areas are rising and increasingly unsustainable.
David Fothergill, the chair of the Local Government Association community wellbeing board, said: “While the additional £600m is helpful, rising costs from national living wage and employer national insurance increases are likely to absorb much of the grant. Many councils will have little left to address urgent care challenges, such as long assessment waits or delayed care packages.”
Rhidian Hughes, the chief executive of the Voluntary Organisations Disability Group, which represents over 100 disability charities, said: “It is a sign of a broken system when councils are overspending by over £560m a year on social care and in turn underfunding third sector organisations delivering essential care and support.”
The Department of Health and Social Care was approached for comment.
