Social care in Liverpool

The combination of a growing and ageing population, increasingly complex care needs, reductions in funding to local government and increases in core care costs have placed adult social care services in England under increasing financial pressure.

In recognition of the funding pressures, the Government has announced new sources of funding for local authorities with responsibility for social care: a social care precept; improved Better Care Fund; and a new Adult Social Care Support Grant. Whilst stakeholders have welcomed the additional funding, they contend that the funding is insufficient to address the scale of the pressures facing the care system.

Between 2010/11 and 2015/16 Liverpool Council’s outturn net expenditure on adult social care rose by 8% in cash prices and 1% in real terms. For 2016/17 the authority predict that they will need to spend around an addition £10 million on social care. Based on the Index of Multiple Deprivation 2015, Liverpool was the 4th most deprived out of 326 district or unitary authorities in England. With one of the highest deprivation scores, the potential amount per head that can be raised from the social care precept in Liverpool is relatively low.