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 row of international flags flying in the breeze outside a building in Paris on a sunny day

    The government is about to host a ‘Global Partnership Conference’ – should it even bother?

    Tomorrow, the government is hosting the Global Partnership Conference in East London.
  2. A 'To Let' sign outside a row of houses on a residential street, UK

    High housing costs in the private rental sector: The case for action

    45 per cent of all private renters in the UK have unaffordable rents. It's time for the government to act to limit rent increases.
  3. A row of international flags flying in the breeze outside a building in Paris on a sunny day

    Diversifying diplomacy: UK strategy in a fragmenting world

    How the UK might build more durable international partnerships in energy, defence and technology.