Elderly Care Warning As Council Tax Set

A crisis is building in services which provide care for the elderly and most vulnerable as councils find their budgets squeezed by inadequate Government funding, it has been claimed. The stark warning was made by bosses at Suffolk County Council as the authority confirmed it will be recommending a tax rise of 4.5%.

The increase would push the bill for an average Band D property through the £1,000 mark – but cuts in adult and social care will still need to go ahead for the second year running.

Council leaders yesterday said the repeated funding gap faced by the authority -blamed on the level of Government grant it receives – was leaving social care in a difficult position. The council will now be putting pressure on the Government for higher funding for the services, along with other authorities in the country.

Jeremy Pembroke, council leader, said: “The message to the Government is: ‘If you want us to look after the elderly and the most vulnerable you must give us the funds with which to do it’. “The fact of the matter is that there is a crisis building up in services for the elderly and the most vulnerable and the Government needs to wake up to it and wake up to it fast. We are frankly on a knife edge. At 4.5% there is no room for manoeuvre.”

But Daphne Savage, chief executive of Age Concern Suffolk, said: “We have got a crisis now – and it is growing bigger. It is not building up. It is already here and it is getting worse.”

The council is striving to avoid compulsory redundancies as it makes a £22million package of savings, but it announced yesterday that it could have to lose 133.7 full-time posts. Around 78 of these could be in adult and community services. It hopes to achieve this through moving and retraining employees as well as not filling vacant posts where possible.

The cutbacks in this financial year, which resulted in the need for a reduction of 140 full time posts, saw around 20 people leave the organisation. Next year’s savings come after the council had to find £24m-worth of cutbacks this year. In both years social care bore the brunt of the cuts, with £14.5m this year and £12.2m expected in 2007/08.

Mr Pembroke said: “We cannot go on doing this and have to recognise that Government grants are not going to grow in real terms.”

Council leaders yesterday said the only way to prevent the multi-million pound cutbacks – keeping the authority at a stand-still position – would be to increase council tax by 10%, above the Government’s capping level.

But Jane Storey, portfolio holder for resources, finance and performance, said: “We know that people want us to keep the increase in council tax as low as possible and once again we have delivered on that commitment. However, we continue to face a trade-off between what we’d like to do and what we can afford to do.”

The proposed council tax rise is higher than the official inflation rate of 3%, but just above the Retail Price Index of 4.4%.

Local Government Minister Phil Woolas defended the level of funding to councils, saying: “No Government has ever put such sustained investment into local services, with a real terms increase of 39% since 1997.”

The proposed rise of 4.5% would see the county council precept – which pays for social care, libraries, roads, fire services and public protection – increase from £990.63 to £1,035.18 on an average Band D property. This bill will be added to those from the district and parish councils and police authority.

The Cabinet will decide its recommended level of council tax at its meeting on February 6 and it will be put before the full council on February 22 for a final decision.