Cllr Bill Revans column: Council tax and adult social care

Potholes that are never quite filled quickly enough.

Dirty signs and faded white lines.

Branch libraries which have been taken over by volunteers.

Council youth clubs and services that have vanished.

Overgrown verges and weeds left untouched.

Yet, council tax continues to climb.

You pay more and you get less.

It’s little wonder that people feel local government doesn’t work like it used to.

And this is happening all over the country.

It’s easy to blame “waste”, “bureaucracy”, or the latest political controversy.

Some blame cycle lanes, others blame so-called “wokeness”.

But if you’re trying to explain why councils like Somerset always appear to be strapped for cash, why council tax keeps rising, why visible services feel diminished, why the NHS is under pressure, or why some families suffer financial hardship due to illness or old age, the answer is much simpler than you might think.

Much of it comes back to adult social care - the policy area hardly anyone talks about, but which quietly shapes so much of our community’s reality.

For many in Somerset, adult social care is something that happens to 'other people'.

If you’re working age, healthy, and your parents are still independent, you may have never encountered things like:

•            Care assessments

•            Charging rules for care

•            Homecare providers

•            Supported living

•            Residential or nursing care placements

That distance makes adult social care feel abstract.

And when you don’t see a service, it’s difficult to understand why it absorbs over two-thirds of Somerset Council’s budget.

This often leads to the misconception that the council is simply choosing to neglect everything else.

I can assure you – we’re not.

Adult social care is the support that helps adults live independently when age, disability, illness, or mental health challenges make that difficult.

This includes:

•            Help with daily tasks at home

•            Supported living for adults with learning disabilities

•            Residential and nursing care

•            Short-term support after hospital stays

•            Safeguarding vulnerable adults and supporting carers

This support goes to vulnerable people who will include your friends, family members or neighbours, and with people living longer and longer with multiple health conditions the demand for Adult Social Care has gone up.

Plus, with increases in National Insurance, National Living Wage and other costs, it has got more expensive too.

Crucially, Somerset Council is legally obliged to assess and provide care for those who meet eligibility criteria.

This isn’t something we can opt out of, even when budgets are tight.

It’s a statutory duty – and rightly so, because the alternative would be leaving vulnerable people at risk.

That is not the caring and civilised society we want to live in.

Here’s the reality many haven’t yet recognised: Somerset Council, like upper-tier councils all over the country, is rapidly becoming a social care organisation, with a shrinking set of other services attached.

Highways, libraries, and parks must compete for what’s left.

This wasn’t always the case, but times have changed dramatically.

So, if our roads seem neglected or our parks a little scruffier, it’s not because we don’t care.

It’s because social care costs rise automatically, driven by law and an ageing population, while everything else is classed as “discretionary” and is easier to cut.

With central government support to local councils having decreased by 40 per cent since 2009, councils are increasingly reliant on council tax for their income.

So, the bigger question is why are we paying for adult social care out of a tax on 1991 property values?

And that opens up an even bigger and scarier question that no one wants to answer.

How should we pay for the care of those most vulnerable in our communities?