{"id":11707,"date":"2017-03-07T16:29:56","date_gmt":"2017-03-07T16:29:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=11707"},"modified":"2017-03-07T16:29:56","modified_gmt":"2017-03-07T16:29:56","slug":"the-forgotten-cousin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=11707","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;The forgotten cousin&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"fb-root\"><\/div>\n<p>Local authorities are \u00e2\u20ac\u0098the forgotten cousins\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 of public expenditure, as the financial crisis facing social care gathers pace, Unite has said.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Unite, which has 80,000 members in local government, said that the chancellor Philip Hammond needs to address the estimated \u00c2\u01412.6bn shortfall in local authority social care provision, as he prepares to deliver his first budget on Wednesday (March 8).<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Unite said that social care needed additional new money from the chancellor and not, what it described as, \u00e2\u20ac\u0098a futile robbing Peter to pay Paul\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 financial sleight of hand.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Since 2010, local government has faced the brunt of the cuts to public spending with 37 per cent cut from the local government budget between 2010 and 2015, with a further 56 per cent due to be axed by 2019\/20.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Along with Unite, the Local Government Association, the King\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Fund, Nuffield Trust and the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services have all called for\u00c2\u00a0the more than \u00c2\u01411bn needed to fund adult social care next year alone.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u015bFor too long local government has been \u00e2\u20ac\u0098the forgotten cousin\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 when it comes to public expenditure,&#8221; said Unite national officer for local government Fiona Farmer. &#8220;Since 2010, council budgets have been slashed \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and then slashed some more.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u015bLocal government, which now also has the added responsibility for \u00e2\u20ac\u0098public health\u00e2\u20ac\u2122, is faced with a growing population of the elderly and the vulnerable, yet the pot of money in real terms is rapidly diminishing.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u015bIt is clear that certain sections of the Tory party have woken up to the scale of the impending crisis,&#8221; she added. &#8220;It was the Conservative-controlled Surrey county council that was contemplating a referendum on a 15 per cent rise in council tax to pay for social care.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWhat we need is genuine new money; we don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want a futile \u00e2\u20ac\u0098Robbing Peter to pay Paul\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 scenario, with other vital budgets being raided by a light-fingered chancellor seeking to assuage mounting public concern.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u015bIf the social care funding crisis is not addressed urgently, cash will be diverted from such important services as libraries, roads, youth services and parks putting a further strain on those services that local communities rely on every day.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u015bBritain is the world\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s sixth largest economy and it is incumbent on the chancellor to find the necessary cash for local government, so that those in need of social care can live in comfort and dignity.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Local authorities are \u00e2\u20ac\u0098the forgotten cousins\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 of public expenditure, as the financial crisis facing social care gathers pace, Unite has said. &nbsp; Unite, which has 80,000 members in local government, said that the chancellor Philip Hammond needs to address the estimated \u00c2\u01412.6bn shortfall in local authority social care provision, as he prepares to deliver his [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11645,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[704,595],"wps_subtitle":"Councils forgotten in social care funding crisis ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11707"}],"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=11707"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11707\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11708,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11707\/revisions\/11708"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}