Where are those people's families and where is my tax going?

[AmusedTaupePlayer]

Nearly 50% of my income vanishes in tax and NI, and I’m seriously wondering what I’m getting in return. The streets are filthy, the Tube’s a mess of delays and breakdowns, and my child’s school can’t even fix leaking ceilings.
GP appointments? Impossible. Police follow-ups? Hit and miss.
I asked my councillor, and he said most of the money’s going to social care — mainly for elderly people and kids in care. Fine, but it makes me ask: where are their families? Why is the state carrying so much, and why does it feel like we're footing the bill for a system that’s barely working?
I’m not trying to be cruel — just frustrated. Is anyone else getting the same response from their council? Or any better answers?

Presumably your councillor only answered about your council tax (where social care is funded from) and is not taking up half of your income.

You should get a tax statement for your income tax each year to tell you where it’s spent.

@Ddakji

Spot on

Also read current thread on AIBU about what happens if I refuse to help my parents.

We live in an ageing society and many of those elderly people will have major health issues and in particular dementia which requires round the clock care.

I assume you work full time? Who will look after your parents if they get dementia? Will you give up working to look after them so the tax payer won't have to foot the bill?

My mum has advanced Alzheimer's and my father, sister and I look after her but many elderly people are not that fortunate, they have no choice but to go into care and many can not afford to fund that care themselves.

How will you look after a family member with dementia while working full time?

It's really not that simplistic.

Have you ever actually met people? Unless you are AI surely you know this.

The awful family in my street have drug dealing, imprisoned sons, their late 20-something daughter is on baby 6 (one dad in prison for rape). I've often pondered how you can stop a family like that. A few weeks of parenting classes aren't going to touch the sides, it would costs hundreds of thousands to help them and their future kids.

And as for elderly care across the UK as a whole, you do realise their adult kids are still working full time and probably not local.

Council services are contracted out left right and centre. I've reported some trees that are blocking a streetlight on a dodgy corner. Our council and county council don't deal with it, it's all contracted out to Enervo who are owned by SSE, a private company. They literally don't care or respond to anything they should be doing.

Interesting just how little money is spent on housing and infrastructure and public law and order and education

Perhaps if there was more investment in that, we might not have such a high need in adult and childrens social care.

But essentially, there will still need a huge amount of money spent on those things, people expect more now, the systems and bureaucracy involved alone is extremely costly, see how much CQC and Ofsted oversight costs alone, let alone that the public has generally voted in most councils for outsourcing and tendering processes which means that private companies provide care homes and care packages and they cost an absolute fortune, people just have no idea of the costs involved.

Unfortunately abuse isn’t deliberate in a lot of cases. It is much more complicated than that. Why breed if abusive- suggests a dislike or hate of children when in fact it’s often shitty childhoods and parenting that lead a parent to not be able to prioritise their child’s needs and therefore them be unsafe to remain in the parents care.

with elderly parents- my sister has no family (other than biologically me) and therefore she is likely to need care in her old age as she has multiple medical issues and I am unable and unwilling to provide care to her (history of severe abuse)

The model for adult care is deeply flawed. Homes are run by private companies who charge the paying residents thousands. MIL is in a home and paying highly for the privilege. They told my BIL that MIL is also effectively paying for the "free" residents as well! The home pays for nursing staff, medical equipment etc, pays the carers peanuts and makes a nice fat profit.

Over the last decade we've been told that it is reasonable to expect people to fund their own care by selling their house/ using their savings, but also we should all pay (again) through extra council tax AND extra National Insurance. Perhaps we need to go down the route of requiring people with no assets to take out additional insurance to cover costs since at the moment some people are paying 3 times while others aren't contributing at all.

But then the biggest issue I see is the Director making a huge profit. Taxpayer-funded care should be non profit making.

There used to be something called housewives, my mother was one and so were most of her friends. Goodness knows what they would be called today, 'Theywives' 'Personwives'. When I was younger, more women didn't work, so the housewives, even though they worked hard, had time on their hands to look after the children and the family looked after elderly relatives, sometimes even taking them in. The family unit was nurtured.

These days, for better or worse, more women work - 20% more women of so-called working age work. Less time to nurture kids, no one has time for the elderly anymore.

The government get more taxes and spend it on the wrong things, familes feel the strain.

So nearly 50% goes on adult social care - the vast majority will be pensioners care. This is the issue - we have an aging population with triple locked state pensions (massive chunk of the benefits pot bevause they didn't Actually pay enough in) and care needs.

Yes but you have to start somewhere...."take care of the pennies and the pounds take care of themselves"

To have two children, from the same home going to the same school having 2 taxis sent for them speaks of "a racket" and abuse of council tax payers monies.

And to not have oversight and performance pay on the contractors doing jobs is another.
In our part of the country, busy B road, the drain covers at the roadsides have to be regularly lifted and levelled because they sink within months of being redone.

Because the work is done shoddily. You wouldn't have those contractors work on your home.
There are lots of saving to be made if you just look.

My DH is a high up social worker, you wouldn’t believe the amount of money it costs to look after a single child in care for the year. It’s crazy money

@AmusedTaupePlayer in answer to why would abusive parents breed. Abusive people don't think hmm, im a terrible person so I'd better not have children. That would suggest a capacity for empathy, logic and good decision making that I (as a survivor of such a parent and her equally abusive bf) do not think they have. Evil people exist. They breed. In a good society we rescue their victims.

Man, you probably should have taken a moment before actually posting that dude.

Women should be able to work if we want. We shouldn't be treated as unpaid labour for elderly care. Housing is so expensive these days that two people are often barely able to meet rent/mortgage/bills let alone food and clothing. People can't afford to have children.

I'm afraid that the most difficult question yet, is not likely to be asked anytime soon - ie that artificially prolonging and preserving people's lives costs a bomb and perhaps it's time to be realistic about what should be achieved by modern medicine and surgery.

great post and my life too.

This is so ridiculously simplistic that I can’t believe it’s a genuine comment. Goady old nonsense.

Southerngirl is spot on. All this care used to be done for “free” by women. Dh granny for example normal working class woman cared for all four of her own parents and her in laws at home until they died.

Now we don’t do this as women have been pushed into the labour market and look how costly women’s labour actually is!

I think the Op over-egged the pudding with that one.

Where did I say women shouldn't be able to work?

I work in adult social care funding. The amount of people who play the system by putting property in trust or finding the loopholes to avoid paying for care costs councils millions a year. Uey i have seen threads on here where people seem to think this is perfectly acceptable. This means more has to be paid by the taxpayer as the care has to be paid for somehow.

I don't know whether OP is trolling or not, but either way this is a good example of magical thinking when it comes to care of the elderly and dependency ratios. Looking after people whose needs are such that they qualify for paid care is very labour intensive. And we don't have enough labour.

You can have people providing substantial enough care that someone with severe needs can stay out of the council budgets, or you can have those same people working and paying in. They're not going to manage both.

I genuinely don't understand. Not a troll. It's just that nobody in my circle has kids as we are all building our careers

Before this I read a post where a parent's 14 year old was out of control and abusive, the other parent was nowhere to be seen and she's getting zero in the way of help. I don't imagine that she set off with the intention of raising a problem child on her own.

Stupid comment.