Shropshire officials to press minister over adult social care funding

Greg Clark, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, will meet Shropshire Council's leader Malcolm Pate and the authority's chief executive Clive Wright on Thursday.

Councillor Pate said he will use the meeting to outline the authority's funding difficulties, and to ask for Government changes to the formula used to fund councils for adult social care.

He said: "The first meeting will be purely on the elderly care budget. It is a big problem and it is the one topic where we want him to go away under no misapprehension of what those problems are.

"I think we are half way there. I have had a telephone call with him and he understands that the reality of the cost is far different to the grant we get from central government."

Councillor Pate said he will highlight how the council has carried out Government policy over the past five years.

He said: "I will be telling him how we have followed Government policy for the last six years and just remind him about the dire financial consequences and the money we have saved over the last six years, the money they are asking us to save over the next six years, and what that means for Shropshire."

It is understood that the council will ask for a Government rethink over the formula by which funding for adult social care is provided, as well as the ability to raise council tax by more than 1.99 per cent without the need for a referendum.

Mr Wright has said that the current system penalises Shropshire for being a place where people want to retire.

He said: "We have a higher than average population of the over 50s and 55s. People also live longer in Shropshire than they do in other parts of the UK."

He added: "We think it is inherently unfair that Shropshire should have to fund people who come to retire here. The burden of that cost is falling on Shropshire Council taxpayers.

"The Government would say it also falls on businesses with business rates but we do not have as many businesses as urban areas because Shropshire is is a rural and agricultural county.

"It is a perfect storm, the funding mechanism is inherently unfair and that is what needs rebalancing."

Following the meeting Mr Clark will be introduced to cabinet members before visiting University Centre Shrewsbury, and Shrewsbury Museum and Art Gallery.