Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they intend to introduce smoothing mechanisms or adjustments of grants to assist those local authorities where permitted increases in the council tax precept produce insufficient income relative to the demographic demands on their adult social care services.

Local Authorities fund adult social care services through a combination of local taxes and central grants, and make local choices about how much to spend in order to meet their duties.

The improved Better Care Fund grant, worth £1.5 Billion in 2019-20 by allocation to local authorities using a methodology which ensures every authority gets its share of the total funding available through this grant and the Social Care precept on council tax, as measured by the social care Relative Needs Formula. The Provisional Local Government Finance Settlement for 2017-18, published on 15 December, confirmed this method following a public consultation