A Conservative council leader says dozens of social care providers are cancelling contracts with local authorities and instead offering their services solely to wealthy private clients.

Izzi Seccombe, who is the Local Government Association’s spokesperson for social care, said the chancellor needed to take urgent action in the autumn statement to tackle a growing crisis in the sector.

Izzi Seccombe

She told the Guardian that a failure by Philip Hammond to plug a multibillion-pound financial black hole would result in elderly and disabled people no longer receiving help to get dressed, showered and fed.



“The challenge is we are underfunded and the concern is that if we cannot bridge those gaps with some funding through the autumn statement, we will not be able to address the needs of people who are vulnerable,” said Seccombe, the Tory leader of Warwickshire county council. She said people would instead have to turn to their GPs or local hospitals for help, resulting in a larger cost to the taxpayer in the long run.

Her comments come alongside a written warning to Hammond that councils across England and Wales are facing a £5.8bn funding gap by 2020. A document submitted by the LGA suggested there would be a serious squeeze on spending for social care, children’s services, homelessness, local parks and libraries.

Hammond’s autumn statement on Wednesday is expected to focus on families who are “just managing” – dubbed the Jams – as well as infrastructure spending and investment in hi-tech industries.

The chancellor will try to break from the style of his predecessor George Osborne by sticking largely to Treasury priorities, rather than announcing initiatives across the government. He has dropped the government’s target of reaching surplus by 2020, but still has a longer term aim to put the economy back into the black.

Some campaigners are concerned that the focus on people in the middle of society could divert attention from those who are most vulnerable, including the poorest elderly and disabled people who rely on social care.

Seccombe said the cost of meeting the “national living wage” had put funding for social care under even more stress, resulting in home care workers and care home providers turning to the private sector to make up for the shortfall.

“Most authorities have seen some providers walk away,” she said. “It means we are challenged as to whether we can meet the needs.”

The LGA is also pushing for action on housing. Martin Tett, the Tory leader of Buckinghamshire county council and the LGA’s housing spokesman, said there was a clear crisis as a result of a lack of supply. He said he wanted the government to redefine its initiative for starter homes to include more affordable properties.



Tett wants councils to be allowed raise charges for planning permission in order to raise money to employ more planners to improve the service. He has also called for the government to raise the cap on borrowing so that councils could build more themselves.



“We’re very supportive of the objective of building more houses but, if you look at the historic trend, the private sector never built enough houses. If the government is going to get the numbers, there will need to be a renaissance of public sector building, so we want more help freeing councils to borrow more.” He admitted that it was politically difficult, however, to raise the deficit.

Tett warned that private sector providers wanted to maximise profits so did not have the incentive to massively increase supply, as that would reduce cost. He said there were hundreds of thousands of planning permissions that had been handed out but were not being acted on because developers wanted to keep prices up. “We want the ability to enforce that they must build out on planning permission,” he said.