The trouble with today's social care report

Uncertainty reigns. Or at least when it comes to today’s Dilnot Report into social care it does. We largely know what measures will be contained within its pages: a higher threshhold for council-funded care, but a cap (of around £35,000) on how much individuals ought to be liable for. What’s less clear is how the government will respond. Far from welcoming the report wholeheartedly – as has been the recent form with these things – there are signs that the government is set to resist some of its recommendations. Andrew Lansley spoke cagily of it yesterday, hinting that the cap was proving particularly difficult in Coalition Land. George Osborne is said to have concerns at the £2 billion cost of the cap, and at how that money will be raised. And a Downing Street source tells the Telegraph that, thanks to the costs of the matter, social care may be tossed into the “medium length grass” for now.