Cornwall Council is cautiously welcoming yesterday’s Budget news of additional funding to help provide more care packages for vulnerable people - and support for businesses affected by the revaluation of business rates.

However, councillors say ’the devil will be in the detail and we await to examine the detail of the Chancellor’s announcement to assess how Cornwall will benefit’.

As part of the budget the Chancellor announced £2bn of additional funding would be made available to local authorities over the next three years to commission new care packages and provide greater support to the most vulnerable in society. 

£1bn of this money is due to be made available in 2017/2018. 

Based on previous allocations for social care funding this could provide an additional £10m for Cornwall.

The Council’s cabinet member for resources, Adam Paynter, said: ’Whilst this additional funding is obviously welcome, it is only one-off funding covering the next three years and a longer term solution is required, one that doesn’t further burden the local taxpayer. 

’We recognise that the Chancellor has said that the Government will set out its thinking on the options for the future financing of social care in a Green Paper later this year and we look forward to receiving the details of this as quickly as possible.’

The budget announcement also outlined additional support to help small businesses affected by the Business Rates revaluation, but again the council is waiting to see the detail.  

An initial assessment suggests up to 100 businesses in Cornwall could benefit from the proposal to cap an increase in bills at £50 a month, with around 500 pubs in Cornwall potentially receiving a £1,000 discount on their bills for 2017/18.

Cllr Paynter said: ’We also welcome the additional £216m which has been announced for repairing schools buildings. 

’This is potentially good news for Cornwall where we are facing a backlog of £90m to bring our schools up to standard.’