Supporting adult social care

The Adult Social Care Precept

Adult social care is one of the main services provided by the Isle of Wight Council. Like all councils across the country, we are facing large cost pressures in providing adult social care services. This is due to:

  • increasing complexity and costs of people requiring care
  • a population that is living for longer, and
  • the impact of the new National Living Wage

To help fund these pressures, The Secretary of State made an offer to adult social care authorities. “Adult social care authorities” are local authorities which have functions under Part 1 of the Care Act 2014, namely:

  • County councils in England
  • District councils for an area in England for which there is no county council
  • London borough councils
  • Common Council of the City of London
  • Council of the Isles of Scilly

The offer was the option of an adult social care authority being able to charge an additional “precept” on its council tax without holding a referendum. This is to assist the authority in meeting expenditure on adult social care from the financial year 2016-17. It was originally made in respect of the financial years up to and including 2019-20. If the Secretary of State chooses to renew this offer in respect of a particular financial year, this is subject to the approval of the House of Commons. The option offered to charge an adult social care precept of up to 2% for 2023-24 has been accepted by the Isle of Wight Council and was approved as part of the budget setting in February 2023.

It is a government requirement that this precept is shown as a separate line on the bill, as a cumulative amount on the years 2016-17 to 2023-24. The 2% increase shown on your bill is an increase on the whole Isle of Wight Council element for the previous year and is in addition to the general Isle of Wight Council increase of 2.99%. Our overall adult social care budget for 2023-24 is £88 million. The Adult Social Care precept in 2023-24 will raise a total of £1.9 million. This will be used directly to provide Adult Social Care Services. The income generated from the charge is ring-fenced, meaning it can only be used for adult social care services. Many other sources of funding are also used to help fund Adult Social Care. These include ordinary council tax, government grants, business rates and service charges.

The precept is included in your council tax bill so will be collected as part of your usual council tax payments. You do not need to make any changes to how you usually pay your council tax.

The precept is part of council tax rather than a service charge, so is not linked to whether or not you receive social care services. If you currently pay for care services you receive, please note that the precept does not replace these charges.

COVID-19 Care home support plan

There are 73 care homes on the Isle of Wight and many have experienced COVID-19. The documents listed below detail our response for each of the Government’s care home support plan priorities and comprise of our Care Home Support Plan. Please download and print them out as needed:


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