Local Government Finance: Shropshire

(asked on 19th January 2022) - View Source

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.


Answered by
Kemi Badenoch Portrait
Kemi Badenoch
President of the Board of Trade
This question was answered on 27th January 2022

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.

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