{"id":10807,"date":"2016-12-12T14:38:16","date_gmt":"2016-12-12T14:38:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=10807"},"modified":"2016-12-13T10:26:01","modified_gmt":"2016-12-13T10:26:01","slug":"surgery-performed-plasters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=10807","title":{"rendered":"Surgery performed with plasters"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

Desperate ministers considering hiking council tax in order to ease the social care crisis have been told their plan will not work by Tory party colleagues, because of \u00e2\u20ac\u015bout of control\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 funding problems.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The care crisis<\/a> – exacerbated by 40 per cent cuts to local authority budgets<\/a> over six years – cannot be resolved by increasing council tax because the scale of the cash shortfall is too big, warned Conservative chair of the Local Government Association\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s community wellbeing board, Izzi Seccombe.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Speaking on BBC Radio 4, Seccombe said the government was looking into increasing the 2 per cent council tax levy for social care made available to local authorities last year.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

She said the previous levy only raised \u00c2\u0141380m of the \u00c2\u0141600m needed to cover costs from the introduction of the new minimum wage and that relying on council tax increases would mean richer areas would be better serviced than poorer ones.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Seccombe also called for an immediate cash injection from the government.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

She said, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe need an injection now of \u00c2\u01411.3bn because there is a shortfall by the end of 2020 of \u00c2\u01412.6bn.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Former Tory health secretary Stephen Dorrell said that while he welcomed councils being allowed to raise council tax to pay for social care, the proportions of the crisis meant that it would not be enough.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

‘Fundamental rethink’<\/strong> <\/em><\/p>\n

Instead Dorrell, who is now chair of NHS Confederation, called for a \u00e2\u20ac\u015bfundamental\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 rethink of health and social care funding.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He said, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bWhat we are talking about is a cash shortage that is threatening the stability not just of local government but of the National Health Service. Unless we address this seriously, we will simply see a failure of service across the range of local public services and people will suffer as a consequence.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Government attempts to stem the loss of care services, 40 per cent of which are estimated to be no longer viable<\/a> in the medium term because of funding cuts and cost increases, have ended in failure.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

On Sunday the Observer newspaper revealed<\/a> that in England 58 per cent of targets in 2015\/16 for improving social care through the\u00c2\u00a0 \u00c2\u01414bn Better Care Fund, which comes from the NHS budget and aims to reduce hospital bed-blocking, were missed.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Responses, from 151 local authorities that the newspaper sent freedom of information requests to, also showed that councils met just a quarter of their targets for reducing emergency hospital admissions of social care recipients.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Fair funding call<\/strong> <\/em><\/p>\n

Unite\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s national officer for local authorities, Fiona Farmer, eviscerated the government\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s social care record and said significant investment and fair funding for councils was the only way to reverse the crisis.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bSo far the government\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s response to a social care crisis of its own making has to been to shift money around and shunt responsibility onto desperately overstretched local authorities. The Better Care Fund, which diverts cash out of the NHS budget, has been shown to be a dismal failure. The same goes for the increase in council tax, which simply cannot bridge the massive shortfall in funding,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 Farmer said.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bHiking council tax bills further is just more of the same: an attempt by the Tories to be seen to be doing something by passing the buck to councils. Local authorities have been cut to the bone and it is evident that the social care system as it stands cannot function much longer. Increasing council tax is a woefully inadequate solution to those issues.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Farmer added, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bBritain needs real leadership on this because it is abundantly clear the way social care is funded and delivered needs radically overhauling. Instead we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got bungling and evasive Tory ministers who seem to think surgery can be performed with sticking plasters.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Desperate ministers considering hiking council tax in order to ease the social care crisis have been told their plan will not work by Tory party colleagues, because of \u00e2\u20ac\u015bout of control\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 funding problems.   The care crisis – exacerbated by 40 per cent cuts to local authority budgets over six years – cannot be resolved […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1666,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17],"tags":[656,349,595],"wps_subtitle":"Unite slams May\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s council tax hike for care costs plan","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10807"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10807"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10807\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10809,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10807\/revisions\/10809"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}