Social care cuts: How is your region affected?

Social care spending is being cut by local authorities

One in 10 councils cut their spending on social care by more than a quarter in the space of six years, a new study has revealed.

Six in every seven councils has made at least some cut in its care spending per adult resident between 2009/10 and 2015/16, research by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) think tank concluded.

Here, we look at how individual regions have been affected.

  • Percentage change in adult social care spending by region, per adult:

The IFS research, funded by the Health Foundation, found major variations in what individual councils spend on social care.

Spending fell by most on average in London - 18% - and metropolitan districts including Merseyside and Tyneside in the North East.

The West Midlands also made big cuts with a drop of 17% in social care across the region.

But it was a different story for those in the South West with the smallest reduction of just 2%.

  • Adult social care spending per adult (£) in 2015–16:

Spending fell below £325 per adult resident in a tenth of council areas, while it was more than around £445 in another tenth of authorities last year.

In terms of regions, councils in East Anglia, the North East and South West spent just short of £400 per adult resident, compared to around £360 for the lowest spending regions in Yorkshire and the Midlands.

But to put these figures into context, it is important to also look at how much social care costs in each region.

  • Unit costs for adult social care services by region and service type 2015–16

Home care is priciest per hour in the South West, South East, London and the East Midlands.

And residential care is most expensive in London and the East, with the North West significantly cheaper than the rest of the country.

Externally provided home care rate is the average hourly rate of all domiciliary care that is out-sourced to other providers.

Internally provided home care rate is provided by the local authority itself.

The figures add to growing concerns about the long term sustainability of social care, though ministers insist councils will have access to billions of pounds of extra funding over this Parliament.

  • What are the figures based on?

Local authorities are required to submit annual returns to the Department for Communities and Local Government, setting out their expenditures and incomes by service area, including for adult social care.

The basis for the figures used in this report is the net expenditure on adult social care as reported in these returns.

The full report can be read here.