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 huge overflowing recycling bin full of discarded empty bottles of alcoholic drinks

    Taking stock: Counting the economic costs of alcohol harm

    Alcohol consumption across the UK is increasing. Government and employers must act to address the health risks.
  2. The inside of a bus. Lots of people sit or stand on a bus during daylight

    A people-focussed future for transport in England

    Our findings from three roundtables on the impact of transport in people’s lives and the priorities for change.
  3. Many national flags against blue sky

    Progressive renewal: The Global Progress Action Summit

    A quarter of the way through this century, change is in the air. Everyone, everywhere, seemingly all at once, wants out of the status quo.