Baroness Lister of Burtersett – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Lister of Burtersett on 2015-11-18.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what consideration they have given to the viability of (1) the care home sector, and (2) the private home care provider sector, in the light of local government expenditure restraint and the implementation of the National Living Wage.
Lord Prior of Brampton
The Government has engaged with the care sector, including care providers, to understand the impact on the market arising from amongst other things, local authority commissioning behaviour and the introduction of the National Living Wage. This has included a number of deep dive sessions held with both care home businesses and providers of home care services.
As part of its spending plans for the next four years the Government is giving local authorities access to £3.5 billion of new support for adult social care by 2019/20. Local authorities will be able to introduce a new Social Care Precept, allowing them to increase council tax by 2% above the existing threshold. The Government estimates this could raise nearly £2 billion a year for adult social care by 2019/20.
Councils will need to increase the price they pay for care to cover costs for care providers such as the National Living Wage. To support this, the Social Care Precept puts money raising powers into the hands of local authorities which are best placed to target resources based on their understanding of their local care market.
