Sajid Javid announces council tax rises of £90 per family to help pay for more social care
The Communities Secretary has laid out this year's funding settlement for councils, including allowing councils to raise taxes by 6%
PLANS to allow Councils to bring forward tax increases of 6% to pay for social care have been announced by Sajid Javid.
The proposal will add more than £90 to the average bill for a Band D property.
It will allow councils to raise hundreds of millions of pounds - £208m in 2017/18 and £440m in 2018/19 - to spend on looking after frail and elderly people at home.
Theresa May says it will help relieve pressures on the system, but that better organisation also was needed to make sure money was being spent well.
Mr Javid, the Communities Secretary also said that there will be a reform of the new homes bonus to reallocate an extra £240m to social care.
But councils say the money will not be enough to plug the gap.
Labour's Shadow Community Secretary, Gareth Thomas, said in response that ministers were still failing to grasp the severity of the situation.
"There is no new money," he said. "Moving money around in a few years time isn't going to tackle the crisis now.
"Is this really the best time to be cutting corporation tax?"
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Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn told the PM to "get a grip" over the social care funding crisis and criticised her for "passing the buck to local government" in a way which would create a postcode lottery.
He said it was a "crisis made in Downing Street" and urged ministers to reverse corporation tax cuts to help fund it.
At Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday, he urged the PM to instead scrap plans to cut corporation tax from 20% to 17% in order to plug the spending gap.
Former chancellor George Osborne announced last year that town halls would be permitted to add a 2% "social care precept" onto bills to raise £2 billion a year to help deal with the growing crisis in the sector.
Now authorities will be able to impose the total 6% rise over two years rather than three, meaning a 3% precept would be added to bills in 2017/18 and 2018/19 but 0% in 2019/20.