Saving social care: A fair funding settlement for the future
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.