Minister told social care action needed
The Local Government Minister Rishi Sunak has been told by county councillors that immediate action is needed to prevent the deterioration of services available for the most vulnerable people in North Yorkshire.
THE LOCAL Government Minister has been told immediate action is needed to prevent the deterioration of services available for the most vulnerable people in North Yorkshire.
County councillors have told Richmond MP Rishi Sunak that while the Government is developing long-term solutions to finance adult social care, the county’s care homes and home care services are at breaking point.
During a meeting of the authority’s Richmond Constituency committee, council leader Carl Les argued that continuing a two per cent social care levy on council tax would be unfair on the county as it would raise less money than elsewhere.
Mr Sunak was also told private care providers already lacked the beds and staff to deliver services and faced losing more staff due to Brexit, while the council lacked the funds to maintain services.
Coun David Blades said: “My concern is what is going to happen over the next three to five years. It is quite concerning that some of those care homes might not be around by the time you have got this sorted in three to five years time. To me it is an 11th hour situation in our area.”
Coun Michael Harrison, the authority’s executive member for adult social care, said: “There just aren’t the beds there. It doesn’t matter what any of us do, if there is no bed to go to or if they need care in their home. They just don’t have the staff working for them to do it.” An investigation by The York
shire Post earlier this year found that councils in the region were underpinning the billion-pound burden of adult social care by dipping into emergency reserves to the tune of almost £80m this year.
North Yorkshire County Council was found to be spending 42 per cent of its total budget on adult social care and has had to make £23m in savings in that area between 2015 and 2020.
Former county council lead- er John Weighell told the meeting that almost every local government service was delivered by eight district and one county council when he was first elected, but now there were about 500 organisations – all needing office staff – running the services.
It is understood that creating a unitary authority in the county could save the public purse up to £40m, which some councillors say would be sufficient to overcome the crisis facing adult social care in North Yorkshire.
Conservative MP Mr Sunak told the committee it was “difficult for him to comment in detail” about the council’s proposals to alleviate adult social care pressures ahead of the Government’s proposals being announced in the autumn.
“Everybody has got a different view on how to do it,” he said. “The Government is mulling those things over and will come up with something later this year.”
Stopping short of backing suggestions that a unitary authority should be established in the county to save funds, Mr Sunak said councils should examine where work was being duplicated for no good reason.
But he went on to say that a balance still needed to be struck between efficiency and democratic accountability.
He said: “What central government will not do is come and dictate to people in local areas how they should organise their affairs. It is up to each local area to decide how they organise their own local government services.”
The Local Government Association is halfway through its own consultation on how to fund adult social care, with the findings due to be published ahead of the Government’s Green Paper on how to reform social care.
It doesn’t matter what any of us do, if there is no bed to go to. Coun Michael Harrison, executive member for adult social care