Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps he is taking to ensure that Shropshire council has adequate funding to provide adult social care.

The 2020-21 settlement for local government responds to the pressures councils are facing by providing access to the largest year on year increase in spending power in a decade.

The additional £1 billion funding announced for adult and children’s social care, together with the continuation of existing social care grant funding worth £2.5 billion and the Adult Social Care Precept, means that the Government will give local authorities access to almost £6 billion of dedicated funding across adult and children’s social care in 2020-21. Shropshire Council will have access to £34.5 million of dedicated social care funding over this period.

In March, the Government provided an additional £1.6 billion to help local authorities respond to coronavirus (COVID-19) pressures across all the services they deliver, including Adult Social Care. Just under £9 million was allocated to Shropshire. On 18 April, the Government announced that local authorities will receive a further £1.6 billion, allocations will be announced in due course.

This takes the total funding to support local authorities to respond to the pandemic to over £3.2 billion.