Mind the £1.7 billion gap – there’s a looming crisis in adult social care

As Labour councillors, it is important for us to speak up in defence of the voiceless victims of the Tories’ ideologically-driven austerity. There are many jobs performed by the state, but one of the most vital, and yet least seen, is caring for people who need it in their old age. Our ability to do that is now under threat, as is our ability to support disabled people to live independently, thanks to unprecedented Tory government cuts to local authorities which pay little heed to the rising pressure in the capital on adult social care.

We are doing our best to protect vulnerable residents from the worst excesses of Cameron’s and Osborne’s callous cuts. Between 2010-11 and 2014-15, London councils had their budgets slashed by over 40 per cent. By 2020, my council will have lost over 70 per cent of its core government funding in the space of a decade. Councils have done their best to protect their spending on adult social care, but this has inevitably put greater strain on other vital services. However, according to new research published today by the Red Lines campaign, by the end of the decade, in 2020, there will be a £1.7 billion gap in London Boroughs’ funding from the government for adult social care. And the Tories’ half-hearted efforts at mitigation – including a new 2 per cent precept on council tax – are sticking plasters at best.

Across the capital, where some 170,000 people now rely on adult social care, a crisis looms. We are starting to see the impact on the NHS, where delayed discharges of patients are at record levels. We see it in the increase in avoidable hospital admissions due to problems that should have been prevented but have been allowed to escalate due to cutbacks in care. This predicament is set to get worse.

Over the last five years, Labour councils in the capital have had to make tough decisions about how to spend dwindling budgets. Every Labour local authority in the capital is doing what it can to protect vulnerable residents. But our ability to sustain that offer is being severely curtailed.

That is why we are coming together to mount the Red Lines campaign now. It is time for the Government to acknowledge the problems they are storing up by cutting back in the care sector. It is also high time they realised that cuts in adult social care will not just leave vulnerable people isolated but will reappear down the line as costs to the NHS. The capital’s hospitals are already full to overflowing and operating beyond their capacity. It is a false economy to cut back the social care services that prevent people from having to go to or stay in an expensive hospital bed. So, we need the government to scale back the cuts it is proposing to councils in the Local Government Finance Settlement this week.

Dignity in old age is a hallmark of a decent society. Supporting disabled people to live independently is the right thing to do. Under this Tory government, both are under threat.

Cllr Andy Hull is Executive Member for Finance and Performance, London Borough of Islington