Everyone in local government is familiar with the ‘graph of doom’.  This shows that social care costs rise as a proportion of total local government costs over the foreseeable future.

Mostly this derives from an analysis that the population is both rising and ageing.  However, that is only half the story. In truth there is another critical component to social care costs – over the long run their costs inevitably rise greater than the rate
of inflation.

For almost fifty years economists have discussed ‘the cost disease’.  This asserts that the cost of health care, personal social care, education and the live performing arts inevitably rise at a rate significantly greater than the economy’s rate of inflation.