In response to specific references in the Chancellor's pre-budget statement concerning savings to be made in the residential care for older people, John Jackson, joint chair of the ADASS Resources Network said: 'Local authorities are already pursuing a wide range of measures designed to stop people going into residential care unnecessarily. Examples of good practice were cited in the Department of Health's Use of Resources in Adult Social Care published last October.

'It is naïve to assume that local authorities can simply make further efficiency savings of at least one per cent more, in addition to those already found, in the absence of any new government initiatives designed to help local government or promote closer working and better resource utilisation between the NHS and local government.'