THE BOROUGH council could be facing an annual bill of £20 million if Government-proposed adult social care reforms are approved.
At the moment, the Government will fund around £20,000 to £25,000 in care, before residents with financial assets are left to foot the bill.
This has left many with substantial bills, sometimes resulting in the sale of their home to finance the cost.
This image, which has caught national headlines, has inspired a reform based on the work of the 2011 Dilnot Commission set up under the coalition government.
These plans would introduce a spending cap of £86,000. Once a resident has paid this for their care, they will receive it for free, from the state.
It would mean that local authorities are left with the bill thereafter, which is predicted to cost Wokingham Borough Council around £20 million each year.
And the Government is giving the council around £3 million to pay for it.
Cllr Charles Margetts, the council’s health, wellbeing and adult services executive, said that this is a worrying deficit.
He has written to the borough’s four MP’s asking them to challenge the Government on the plan.
It would affect all local authorities that have a high cost of care and high level of private payers, including the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead, and West Berkshire.
Cllr Margetts said while the plan would give residents protection from vast bills, but has downsides too.
“The bottom line is someone has to pay,” he said. “And that burden is being placed on local authorities.
“The effort is welcome, but at the moment, it’s unaffordable.
“Finding £20 million a year would be hard. A certain amount of the services we have to provide are statutory.
“We would have to take bold steps, things that residents won’t like, such as put up council tax or cut other services. We think that would be very bad news for residents.
“On the ground, this is not going to work.”
Cllr Margetts said he believes this would affect all of the home counties.
“This is the start of a long campaign to get the Government to look at this,” he said. “My aim is to get a Berkshire lobbying group together.”
Cllr Margetts has penned a joint letter with Cllr Stuart Carroll, cabinet member for adult social care at the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead, to health secretary Sajid Javid.
In the letter, the councillors said: “We struggle to see how we can provide even our bare minimum statutory services if we have to absorb such staggering costs.
“Without addressing the wider issues, the Government’s vision of ‘solving the crisis, once and for all’ will not be realised and we urge immediate action.”
Cllr David Hare, Liberal Democrat lead for adult services, said that he would also like to see where the money will come from.
“The reform is focused on the headline-grabbing issue of care homes but does not look at the bigger picture,” he said.
“This reform does not seem to have been rationally thought through and the impact on councils such as Wokingham, with a high number of self-funders, considered.”
He added: “The Conservative Government is hitting a Conservative local administration with increased costs to please those who have valuable homes, as well as savings or investments, and who, understandably, want to preserve their inheritance.
“If the Government continues with this reform as proposed, it might mean a rate increase of about 20% for each property in Wokingham.”
This could be £500 per home, said Cllr Clive Jones, leader of the Wokingham Liberal Democrats.
He called for the cost to be covered by general taxation, and said it should not fall to the local authority.
Cllr Rachel Burgess, leader of Wokingham Labour, said that it is clear that the Conservatives’ social care reforms leave councils way short of what they need.
“In recent years the Conservatives have shifted the cost of social care from the fairer system of central taxation onto the council tax payer,” she said. “And it is council tax payers, and people who are denied care when it is inevitably rationed, who pay the price.”
She added: “This comes at a time when the care profession is firefighting day in, day out, due to staff shortages caused by Brexit and Covid-19. Some councils are already having to ration care for older and disabled people due to lack of staff resources. In reality this could mean people are not helped out of bed, or are left alone for longer periods.
“The crisis in social care is deepening every day. Without full reform, and proper funding, these problems will only increase — and our elderly people and those with additional needs deserve better.”
