I do not disagree with the approach of setting national eligibility criteria and taking a national view, so I agree with the Minister on that. The problem, however, is that if the Government legislate for just critical and substantial levels, they are sending a very clear message to local government that they believe they can only afford to fund it at those levels. Surely the criteria would have been set higher if they were funding local government better.
The truth is that when this Government came to office, many more councils in England were providing social care at “moderate” level. That has been slowly cut
back and now only about 23 councils are still providing support to people with moderate needs. It is a fair bet that those councils will soon be unable to provide moderate care and shrink back to providing only critical and substantial care.