Adult social care budgets cut by £890m

A survey of top-tier councils in England by the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services found they are cutting £890m in total from budgets in 2012-13, equivalent to a 6.8 per cent cut. This comes on top of a 7.7 per cent cut made last year.

The association said this year’s cuts were made up of £688m in service redesign and efficiency savings, £77m through increased charges and £113m from service reductions.

This had been achieved despite increased spending pressures from a 3 per cent rise in the number of older or disabled adults.

ADASS president Sarah Pickup said: “The latest survey shows that councils continue to strive to protect front line services through redesigning services to focus on prevention and recovery and reducing ongoing costs, and by reviewing processes, services and contracts to ensure value for money.”

Pressure from care providers to increase payments coupled with tight council budgets and rising demand for services meant it “could not be clearer that there is a the desperate need for politicians from all parties quickly to find an answer to how we, as a nation, are going to adequately fund social care services in the future”, Ms Pickup said.

Without a sustainable funding system “there is a real risk that access to care will have to be restricted,” she warned.

“This challenge will not go away if it is once again kicked into the long grass.”

The survey found that there was a 0.9 per cent planned average increase in fees overall.

Only six councils had changed their fair access to care services criteria between this year and last from moderate to substantial, which meant 83 per cent of councils now used the ‘substantial’ criteria.

Richard Humphries, senior fellow at the King’s Fund, said: “With further local government budget cuts to follow, it is not alarmist to warn of an impending crisis in social care and the risk that this will undermine the performance of the NHS.

“This survey reinforces the need to move much more quickly to achieve closer integration between health and social care and deliver a long term funding settlement for social care based on the proposals set out by the Dilnot commission.”