Saving social care: A fair funding settlement for the future

Article

Adult social care has been cut substantially since the onset of austerity. This is increasingly having severe consequences on the frontline including rising unmet need and pressures on quality and safety. These pressures are likely to increase as demand for care grows ahead of available funding, resulting in a £2.7 billion funding gap by 2020/21 and £9.5 billion by 2030/31.

In looking to fill this funding gap, government should ensure that any solutions are simultaneously sufficient to fill the gap; inter and intra-generationally fair; and politically achievable. This report has looked at four options – means testing Winter Fuel Payments; scrapping the Triple Lock on pensions; raising National Insurance Contributions and increasing Inheritance Tax – and measured them against these three criteria.

Related items

  1. A stack of large shipping containers painted with the UK and EU flags

    Aligning for growth? The benefits of an EU-UK mutual recognition agreement

    Scoping the potential next frontier of a deepening relationship between the UK and the EU.
  2. A wind turbine stands in the middle of a field of solar panels on a sunny day

    The wiring behind rewiring the state: Energy devolution in England

    How the government can give local leaders the opportunities to lead energy transformation locally.
  3. Aerial views of Manchester skyline of new skyscrapers

    Devolution that delivers: Fiscal power for regional growth

    The UK is one of the most centralised countries in the developed world, and one of the most regionally unequal.