Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, if he will take steps to support Shropshire Council in meeting immediate pressures as a result of increased demands on social care services and changes in its demographic make-up by resolving the £50m structural deficit within its operating budget.
The provisional Local Government Finance Settlement makes available an additional £3.5 billion to councils, including funding for adult social care reform. This is an increase in local authority funding for 2022/23 of over 4% in real terms, which will ensure councils across the country have the resources they need to deliver key services.
Local authorities can also make use of over £1 billion of additional resource specifically for social care in 2022/23 through this proposed Settlement. This includes the increase in Social Care Grant and the improved Better Care Fund alongside the additional 1% ASC precept and deferred flexibilities from last year's Settlement.
Further to this, the Government is committed to reforming health and social care, we have announced an additional £5.4 billion investment over three years to begin a comprehensive programme of reform for adult social care. In the provisional Settlement, we set out that £162 million of this funding will be allocated in 2022/23 to support local authorities as they prepare their markets for reform and to help move towards paying a fair cost of care. A further £600 million will be made available in both 2023 to 2024 and 2024 to 2025.
For Shropshire Council, these proposals mean a proposed percentage increase to Core Spending Power of up to 7% from £264.5 million in 2021/22 to up to £283 million in 2022/23.