Commenting on increases in council tax due to come into effect this Friday 1 April, Janet Morrison, Chief Executive of Independent Age, the older people’s charity, said:
“Few people want to pay more council tax, but the reality is that councils are leaving far too many elderly people without the care and support services they need to live in dignity - councils helped 400,000 fewer people in 2015 than five years earlier.1
“In the short term, councils need more money to meet even the basic care of those in serious need of support. And the £382 million raised through the social care precept could help slow this fall in the number of older people provided with social care services. But on its own it probably won’t be enough to reverse this trend. In the longer term we need a wider, cross-party approach to the funding needs of our health and social care system.”
Notes
- Community Care Statistics 2014/15, October 2015, Health and Social Care Information Centre