CARE SERVICES SEE YET ANOTHER BROKEN PROMISE

WHEN our current Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced his plan for a new tax designed to pay for Health and Social Care, there was a general expectation that he was about to fulfil his promise on the steps of Downing Street that he intended to ‘fix social care once and for all’ only to discover, when reading the small print, that this is another promise broken.

Why should anyone be surprised?

All workers earning over £184 a week will from April see increased National Insurance payments, virtually all the tax raised will go to the NHS, to fund the 10 years of Tories mismanagement and chronic underfunding during austerity.

This Tory policy which saw our NHS facilities and services shrink and the convulsions of the Covid pandemic has caused record waiting lists and led to over 130,000 deaths.

It now appears that here is likely to be little left for social care, so much so that, also, in the small print there is an expectation that councils will have to increase council tax yet again next April, with an additional social care precept, to help CWaC pay for adult and younger people’s social care, which currently accounts for 50% of its annual budget.

The Government have done nothing to tackle the staff vacancies in care homes, or the staff training and career progression for what should be a rewarding job.

The Conservatives used to be thought of as the Party of Low Tax and financial competence. With the double whammy of increases in National Insurance and council tax coming next April, hitting hard all those other than the highest paid, not forgetting the effective cut in the state pension because of the ending of the triple lock, which may take as much as £400 a year off pensioners incomes and the freezing of personal tax allowances, that reputation is long gone.

Ian Gibson