After “the end of local government as we know it,” what next for social care?

Earlier this week government ministers met to consider rises in council tax to provide extra funding for adult social care in England.1 While extreme financial and service pressures have recently hit the headlines, they have been growing for some time. In 2012, the leader of Birmingham City Council (thought to be the largest local authority in Europe) described draconian cuts as the “end of local government as we know it.”2 The so called “Barnet graph of doom” also showed that children’s services and adult social care could consume all of future council budgets, with nothing left for services such as refuse collection, libraries, parks, leisure centres, and roads.3 Since then, the cuts have continued relentlessly and the 2015 Association of Directors of Adult Social Services budget survey concluded that:

There have been 5 years of funding reductions totalling £4.6 billion [€5.5bn; $5.9bn] and representing 31% of real terms net budgets. This year, adult social care budgets will reduce …