Shropshire Star

Social care overspend to soak up £8.5m of Shropshire Council's extra funding

An overspend in Shropshire Council's adult social care budget will use up the entire £8.5 million of extra funding from the Government.

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Malcolm Pate

But Councillor Malcolm Pate, leader of the council, told a meeting of the authority's cabinet he had been given an assurance that more funding would be made available next year.

He revealed he had taken part in a 25-minute conversation with Greg Clarke, Secretary of State for the Department for Communities and Local Government, on Tuesday.

Councillor Pate said the minister had given him "assurances" and a "gentleman's agreement" that more funding would be available next year to help prevent some of the council's planned cuts.

MPs last night voted to approve the Local Government Finance report at the House of Commons, setting out funding for councils across England for 2016/17.

Last week Councillor Pate said the authority would need £20 million of extra funding to prevent it cutting budgets for leisure centres and museums to zero. It was announced earlier this week that Shropshire Council would receive an extra £8.5 million over the next two years.

But he told yesterday's cabinet meeting: "Daniel Kawczynski was being fully supportive of the council position which culminated in a conversation between me and Greg Clark for 25 minutes on Tuesday, where they gave certain gentlemen's assurances which I accepted.

"One of those assurances is he did say he was very concious about the way the Government was assessing the needs for the elderly and that perhaps there were better ways of doing this and having every council's funding assessed on the basis of need."

He added: "He also gave an assurance that he will look at what he can do about the financial problems next year."

Currently Shropshire Council's growing elderly population means it faces a disproportionate bill to pay for adult social care. But Councillor Pate warned that despite the extra funding the council is effectively in the same position it was before the increase in its funding settlement was announced.

The impact of the extra funding is being investigated by the authority's officers and will be revealed in a paper at a special meeting of the cabinet on Wednesday.

Councillor Alan Mosley, leader of the authority's Labour group, said the announcement raised concerns about the council's handling of its adult social care budget.

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