All this seems to me to add up to something like a major financial Crisis in the Social Services and makes it more imperative that we try to work out a long-term strategy, a long-term policy.
I shall not stray from the subject before the House, but it so happens that there is something of a Crisis in the Social Services in my constituency and in the health district which includes my constituency.
They have created a Crisis in Social Services, with the Parliamentary Under-Secretary pontificating on what others should do while neglecting to offer real help and encouragement to those who have towork with the most neglected and difficult children in our society.
In addition to a self-imposed Crisis in Social Services, East Sussex seems resigned to causing longer waiting lists in our local NHS.
Is the hon. Lady aware that, a few weeks ago, I was invited by the Labour/Liberal-controlled council to meet a Health Minister to discuss the Crisis in Social Services in Southend?
We all know about the problems faced across the country, including in my area, with regard to bed blocking and the Crisis in Social Services.
There is a Crisis in Social Services and in hospitals.
Reference was made to the Crisis in Social Services, but we should also remember the unfairness of the population-based calculation, anomalies in education grants and the rules governing them, and late changes to the area cost adjustment, all of which impact heavily not only on metropolitan authorities in general, but on Gateshead council in particular.
The Crisis in Social Services is of the Government's own making.
The Crisis in Social Services was emphasised in particular.
If hon. Members were asked whether their local authority was suffering a Social Services Crisis, at least eight out of 10 should answer yes.
settled the public sector pay and pensions increases; insisted on passporting education expenditure through even when there has been no grant to cover it; failed to recognise the Crisis in Social Services; about which every Member in the House has been telling the Minister; and granted tax-raising powers to the Mayor of London, it is not surprising that council taxes have increased by a long way ahead of inflation.
In a year in which they have increased national insurance contributions; settled the public sector pay and pensions increases; insisted on passporting education expenditure through even when there has been no grant to cover it; failed to recognise the Crisis in Social Services; about which every Member in the House has been telling the Minister; and granted tax-raising powers to the Mayor of London, it is not surprising that council taxes have increased by a long way ahead of inflation.
The Crisis in Social Services is bound to be made worse by the formula because of increasing demands from old people's and, indeed, young persons' services, but that must be seen in the context of the crisis in the NHS as well, owing to increasingly close links between it and social services - links that the Government and most sensible people want.
There is a Crisis in Social Services.