The costs of adult social care are threatening to swallow up budgets of councils across the country.

And Councillor Brian Ford, who was the cabinet member responsible for adults services and health at Swindon Borough Council several years - and who is stepping down from the authority this week - says the funding model needs changing.

There is a statutory requirement on councils like Swindon’s to provide care, and support for elderly and otherwise vulnerable adults, who meet the financial tests for public funding.

That might include paying for carers to visit someone at their home, or paying for a place at a care home, or funding adaptations to the home of someone who might need extra rails or equipment to be able to live independently.

That work is funded from a council’s revenue budget which is largely provided by council tax and business rates.

And year on year social care demands grow, and the money, and proportion of a council’s budget, spent on meeting that demand goes up.

Last year, for the first time more than half of the revenue budget spent by Swindon Borough Council was allocated to adults’ social care - £84.2m representing 50.6 per cent of the total.

Councillor Ford said” I think a government, of whatever party, has to grasp the nettle on this and make reforms.

The demands are only growing. The share of the budget was at around 47 per cent just a few years ago and it is higher now.

“The council has a legal duty to meet that demand. If someone presents themselves as needing care, we have to supply it if they are eligible. We can’t say no.”

And with more and more people living longer, the impact of having to meet that demand impacts the rest of the council’s services.

Social care and children’s services combined account for more than 80 per cent of Euclid Street’s spending – that means all its other services; maintaining roads, running libraries, collecting the bins and managing recycling and waste, maintaining parks and gardens and everything else, is funded from less than 20 per cent of the budget.

Cllr Ford said: “When I was in cabinet, I had the highest budget by far, and other members might have wanted cuts to fall on my department and I had to explain that we couldn’t refuse the service.

“I think the funding needs to be properly ring-fenced and come from government. Our public health funding is ring-fenced and I think the social care budget should be as well.

“I think local councils are still the best place for the services to sit, rather than the NHS, but it needs to be funded and properly protected.”