The cuts we do not see

By Diana Smith / @mulberrybush

I have a confession to make. I do not know nearly enough about what my local authorities, either the Borough or the County, spend my money on, and I do not know the full extent of the discretion they have.

I do know that whenever there is a local election the pressure from the press is always on the bottom line. The parties end up in a bidding war, competing on the grounds of the lowest council tax. The Conservatives do it because they believe in doing it, and Labour do it because they must to stand a chance of election.

For the minority of people who actually make it to the polls to vote on local elections this is what generally matters most: don’t bother to tell us what you are doing, just don’t make us pay any more!

I ought to know more about local authority spending, both because I used to work for a local authority, and because I am a Labour Party activist. My guess is that if I know as little as I do then many other people will know a great deal less.

Is this of any importance? Well, yes, I think it is.

The death of my mother a few years back brought me to the end of eight years of dealing with the Social Care system. What I was dealing with throughout this period was local authority discretion. It was the local authority which decided who could and could not receive assistance, the amount of care that they would receive and the amount that they would be charged for it. It was an experience that left me with a deep feeling of unfairness and anger. It is why I have been campaigning actively for a National Care Service, something that the Labour Government will be bringing out as a White Paper before the election. It will be about getting us out of the current postcode lottery and setting the standards we need for care. Getting it right is crucial if we want people to make sensible long term provision for their old age. Failing to get it right, as the ageing society time bomb takes effect, is going to mean a level of misery and unfairness that we can only begin to imagine.

The Conservative Party are perfectly well aware of the needs of the older population – this much was clear in the opposition day debate on dementia held this week. It is interesting that many of the people who contributed their ideas to the detailed discussions that have led to the National Care Service proposals are probably also naturally Conservative voters. The clarity of a National Care Service – and a fair way of funding it – is in the interests of every family in the country, if you exclude the very rich or the very selfish.

Having good quality care in old age matters to everyone. Having fair and affordable methods of paying for it matters most to all those people who are not rich, but have taken the trouble to save responsibly and put a little aside to pass on to their children.

So one of the big issues for the election will be the choice to make about how we provide and fund care. On the one hand we have the comprehensive long term planning of the National Care Service which should have a very wide appeal if we can make people see why it is needed. On the other hand we have short term cuts, localism and a reliance on the private sector and voluntary action, which will appeal to those people who think purely in the short term – i.e. what is cheapest for me now?

I am beginning to hear rumours about what locally-administered cuts might look like. I don’t know at this stage how sound they are. I am hearing about the costs of domiciliary care going up, service provision to people with “low or moderate needs” going down, and people being quietly re-assessed for “discretionary allowances” and finding they are no longer eligible, despite worsening care needs.

These are the salami-style cuts I fear we can anticipate if we get a Conservative Government. We need to know much more about what our local authorities are doing, and much more about where they may be looking for some of the “efficiency savings” they would like to find.