Councils furious at Gordon Brown's £250m Social Care Burden.

At a time when Councils are trying to help their residents out by keeping council tax bills down (my local Conservative council has frozen it), Gordon Brown wants to saddle them with a £250m burden to pay for extra social care. If Gordon Brown wants this scheme to happen, then why isn't he funding it, instead of passing the burden onto local councils? Inevitably we will pay for this scheme through our council tax.

During DCLG Parliamentary questions today, Shadow Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, Caroline Spelman confronted the Government further over their social care scheme, accusing Ministers of Living in “cloud cuckoo Land”

Extracts from the debate:

“Councils are "feeling furious" after being warned they could have to contribute GBP250 million towards a free home care scheme for the elderly, Tories said today.

“Shadow communities secretary Caroline Spelman said ministers must be living in "cloud cuckoo land" if they did not believe this was an "unfunded burden".

“Last month Gordon Brown unveiled plans to provide 400,000 vulnerable elderly people with free personal care in their homes, at an annual cost of GBP670 million.

“Some GBP420 million of this would be funded by the Department of Health while the rest would be met by local authorities. But council leaders have warned that the Personal Care at Home Bill would increase the strain on an already overburdened social services system.

“During Commons question time, Mrs Spelman asked: "Can you understand why councils are feeling so furious after being instructed to meet a GBP250 million shortfall in the Prime Minister's latest commitment to personal care?

"Given the Government defines a new burden as any new policy or initiative which increases the cost of providing local authority services, can you explain which part of that GBP250 million is not covered by that doctrine?”

Typical Gordon Brown, isn't he great at spending our money?