Agenda item

Social Care Funding

It was moved by Councillor Roger Davison, seconded by Councillor Sue Alston, that this Council:-

(a)       notes the cross-party support for the Coalition Government policy to cap care costs following the Dilnot Commission, and that the Conservative Party was elected to Government with a clear and unambiguous promise in their manifesto to cap care costs from 2016 onwards;

(b)       notes that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Rt. Hon. George Osborne MP’s emergency budget in July 2015 provided no extra funding for social care;

(c)        notes with concern the recent Government announcement to shelve plans for a cap on care costs, with an estimated £100m of public money spent on preparation set to be wasted and uncertainty for the future of those who will be needing these care services;

(d)       notes that social care has suffered from chronic underfunding and, unlike the NHS, has not enjoyed any protection and that an underfunded social care system simply increases costs in the NHS;

(e)       therefore calls on the Government to ensure that social care is sustainably funded to ensure that people receive the right care in the right place at the right time and that no one faces catastrophic care costs;

(f)        calls on the Government to cancel the increase in the allowance threshold for inheritance tax and use the saving to support these reforms, thereby protecting the homes of those in need of care; and

(g)       requests that a copy of this motion be sent to the Secretary of State for Health.

Whereupon, it was moved by Councillor Mary Lea, seconded by Councillor Jack Scott, as an amendment, that the Motion now submitted be amended by:-

1.          the addition in paragraph (d), after the words “suffered from chronic underfunding”, of the words “in no small part due to swingeing cuts to local authority budgets under the Coalition Government”;

2.          the addition of a new paragraph (e) as follows and the re-lettering of the original paragraphs (e) to (g) as new paragraphs (f) to (h):-

(e)        notes that adult social care is one of the areas to which the current Administration will continue to provide the greatest protection, despite expecting to have to find a further £50m from the Council’s budget next year;

On being put to the vote, the amendment was carried.

The original Motion, as amended, was then put as a Substantive Motion in the following form and carried:-