AS WE have said many times before in this column the social care system is in crisis and more funding has to be found in every part of the country to try to support it.

Therefore, Bradford Council is right to seek to take advantage of every opportunity to raise as much money as possible, including putting up Council Tax to the maximum allowable amount of 4.99 per cent, to do so.

Yes, such an extremely large rise in percentage terms, which is set to be introduced next April, will hit many people hard - and it comes against a backdrop of severe cuts across other Council services - but people will be hit much harder in the longer term if we don’t find better ways of improving how we deal with the funding of the ailing social care system.

Be in no doubt, though, that this measure, which Government rules only allow councils to rely on for the next two financial years, is a stop gap - but it is an essential stop gap, nonetheless.

That’s why in the long-term, the Government must find better, and indeed fairer ways, of helping to shoulder social care costs which, with a growing elderly or vulnerable population, are set to rise still further and will have an increasing financial impact on every local authority in the land.

Councils in lower income areas like Bradford will also raise much less when imposing this maximum tax rise than other local authorities in far wealthier areas.

There are already far too many instances where quality of care and services is determined by where you live. Social care must not be allowed to become another.