Meeting note for 16 February 2026
The group focused on two linked themes that continue to dominate local public service delivery: whether council tax and adult social care should be reformed in tandem; and whether digital income maximisation tools, particularly online benefit calculators, are being unfairly criticised for access problems that sit elsewhere in the system. A final segment covered poverty trends in Wales and what devolution can and cannot change.
1. Reforming council tax and adult social care: aligned reform, or a false shortcut?
Gareth Morgan opened with a warning from experience: merging means tests can create a more complex, less workable system rather than a simpler one. Drawing on work reviewing means testing for disabled facilities grants, he argued that the adult social care financial assessment is fundamentally different from council tax related means tests. He highlighted practical mismatches, including the absence of passporting in social care, the use of disability related expenditure, the focus on the disabled person’s income rather than household income, and the way disability benefits are treated within social care charging. His central point was that a single means test trying to do multiple jobs tends to accumulate exceptions and patches, which can make it harder to administer and harder for residents to understand. Malcolm Gardner took the report’s proposition slightly differently. He suggested the intent might not be to literally merge assessments, but to reform both areas at the same time by shifting social care funding away from local authorities, allowing council tax to be rebuilt as a more progressive local tax focused on core local services. He also recognised the risk Gareth raised: trying to solve two problems at once can double the difficulty if social care reform is not addressed properly first. Rachael reinforced the scale of the budget problem, describing adult social care as “a beast” in many areas, crowding out preventative and neighbourhood services such as libraries, parks, roads, and early intervention. She agreed both council tax and social care need major reform but cautioned that relocating the funding line does not remove demand pressures. In her view, the same pattern can, and already does, emerge elsewhere; she pointed to SEND pressures and temporary accommodation as examples of other spending areas with similar potential to overwhelm local budgets. Her concern was that focusing reform on a single service risks missing the wider structural issue in local public finance.
Bob Wagstaff backed this argument from a different angle, agreeing that removing social care from the council tax equation would not prevent other large demand led services from consuming budgets. He suggested the discussion needs to look ahead to how local government reorganisation and devolution may change what “local” means, with authorities becoming larger and governance increasingly regional.
Paul Howarth emphasised that repeated attempts to reform adult social care have stalled largely due to funding. He noted that select committees have repeatedly highlighted the cost of doing nothing, including unmet need, pressure on unpaid carers, undervaluation of the workforce, and the way social care crowds out other services. His view was that social care reform is already hard enough without coupling it to another major reform programme. Tom Clark (Liverpool) agreed with Gareth that the two areas are distinct in design and operation and questioned whether the paper may have been prompted by the visibility of the adult social care precept on bills rather than a workable policy plan. He returned to the “postcode lottery” issue: differences in local charging and local policy generosity can mean residents see materially different outcomes when moving short distances across local boundaries. He argued that funding changes are needed to address these inequities but did not see “mashing together” systems as a credible solution. He also raised a practical political point: council tax fatigue is already high; any model that implies substantially higher bills to fund social care properly would be difficult to land with residents. Sean O’Sullivan pressed the group to separate “how we pay” from “what we pay for”. He argued adult social care requires deeper reform of delivery, accountability, charging transparency, and recovery arrangements. He highlighted structural issues including layers of contracting through agencies, unclear accountability between provider and resident, weak recovery options, and the extreme costs of residential care. For him, the debate is not just about who funds social care, but whether current arrangements purchase good outcomes and fair charging.
Rachael then set out her wider line: social care, education, and public health are national services delivered locally, much like the NHS. Her concern was that partial reform could generate several years of uncertainty, and then freeze further council tax reform for decades. In that scenario, she argued, the system remains trapped in local inequality, even for core services such as road maintenance.
2. Income maximisation and benefit calculators: access gaps are real, but blame may be misplaced
The group then turned to an income maximisation report focused on mental health and take up, including claims that a high proportion of support is delivered “digital by default” through online calculators and that large numbers are unaware of available services. Malcolm Gardner introduced the central tension: under claiming is a long standing and well evidenced issue, but the report’s framing appeared to treat calculators as a cause of exclusion rather than a tool within a wider support ecosystem. Gareth Morgan questioned the strength of the evidence base, describing the sample as potentially too small to bear the weight of the conclusions. He argued the report appeared to be written to a conclusion, and that debates about “calculator quality” risk becoming unnecessarily competitive when the real objective is to ensure people can access the route that suits them. His core point was that multiple channels are needed, not a false choice between digital tools and human support. Nicki Duckworth challenged the suggestion that calculators are “inefficient”. From her perspective, teams running calculators complete millions of calculations each year and respond to edge case feedback to improve accuracy. She stressed that many residents value anonymity and self-service, particularly younger cohorts who are less likely to engage with face-to-face advice. She also pointed to the resourcing reality: local government budgets have tightened for years, and rebuilding large in-house welfare advice teams is not straightforward, both because of funding and because capacity has diminished over time. Tom Clark added operational evidence from Liverpool: when the council reconnects with community venues such as food banks and faith settings, many residents are still unaware of available support. For him, this underlines the continuing need for outreach and promotion, not an indictment of calculators. He cited the growth of services designed to link residents to support as further indication that awareness and navigation remain barriers.
Sean O’Sullivan agreed calculators are valuable but argued the local authority role in distribution and signposting is inconsistent. He suggested some advice is partial or targeted around collection objectives rather than resident income maximisation, and that limited advertising of help means those who already know where to look are more likely to benefit than those in greatest need. Rachael framed the methodological issue directly: if some people with mental health challenges struggle to access services, it does not follow that calculators are at fault. She described calculators as a gateway tool that helps residents understand “what they do not know”, and as an enabler for the limited number of advisers available. She also warned that a narrative casting calculators as harmful could deter residents from using tools that have delivered substantial net gains in income for many households. Gareth returned to the question of advice capacity, clarifying that welfare advice still exists, but is unevenly distributed across Citizens Advice, housing associations, charities, and specialist local authority teams, sometimes with a focus on income streams that offset local costs. He also referenced the National Association of Welfare Rights Advisers campaign to make social welfare advice a statutory duty, noting the intention to create more consistent provision and a “no wrong door” approach. Bob Wagstaff offered a practical example from food bank operations: lottery funded provision enables a Citizens Advice adviser to attend when the food bank is open. While advice cannot always be delivered on site due to privacy and time, the adviser function is effective as signposting, and those who engage are more likely to resolve their issues. The food bank’s role, he noted, is only a short-term intervention; advice support is what helps address underlying problems. Robert Fox concluded the segment by describing Swindon’s direction of travel towards prevention and early intervention, aligning with the “no wrong door” principle and making better use of limited facilities and budgets. His final point echoed the group’s shared view: calculators are an important tool because no single person or service can hold the full system in their head, and residents need routes that work for them. 3. Poverty in Wales: deep poverty rising, and the limits of devolved levers The final discussion turned to a Joseph Rowntree Foundation assessment that poverty in Wales has deepened, with particular concern about “very deep poverty”. Gareth Morgan described a long term pattern: poverty reduced over earlier decades, then flat lined in more recent years, but with a shift inside the poverty group towards deeper deprivation. In his reading, the “poor are getting poorer”, and without structural changes to funding flows into Wales, the ability to shift outcomes is constrained. He also noted the approaching Senedd elections and suggested parties are unlikely to commit to large increases in poverty spending given competing pressures. Rachael brought in a comparison with Scotland, suggesting that divergence from Westminster policy has contributed to lower child poverty rates there. She questioned whether Wales is pulling all available levers, while acknowledging the devolved settlement differs and comparison is not straightforward. Gareth responded that Wales has used some levers, particularly in education and longer term policy through the Future Generations Act, including universal free primary school meals and continued education maintenance allowances. However, he emphasised that ambitions are limited by the funding envelope, and that policy commitments can create hard to manage budget consequences if modelling is weak or the fiscal context shifts. Closing reflections Across all three topics, the discussion returned to a consistent theme: the system’s biggest risks sit at the intersection of demand pressures, inconsistent local capacity, and the limits of funding models. On council tax and social care, the group broadly accepted that both require reform, but questioned whether linking them would simplify anything in practice. On income maximisation, participants agreed access barriers are real, but argued calculators are part of the solution, not the problem, and that the urgent task is improving awareness, navigation, and “no wrong door” support rather than undermining effective tools.
Downloads
Please note that the handout contains additional slides covering other items of interest in the news and job adverts, which are provided in partnership with Business Smart Solutions (https://www.businesssmartsolutions.co.uk/).