When we pressed witnesses about the fragile state of adult social care services and continuing demographic pressure, the Department agreed the demographic pressures from both working-age and older people are quite significant but listed three sources of funding to sustain “business-as-usual social care”. These were rises in council tax (including the adult social care precept), growth in business rates, and a portion of the £1.6 billion of 68 Qq 8 and 38; C&AG’s Report, page 4 69 Qq 66, 88; C&AG’s Report, page 4 70 Qq 66, 88; C&AG Report, page 4 71 HM Treasury, Autumn budget and Spending Review 2021, 27 October 2021 72 Q 91; C&AG’s Report, page 4 73 Q 8 74 Qq, 56, 57 75 Qq 9 and 10 76 Q 88 77 Q 10 78 Qq 67–68 79 Qq 8, 84–85, 101 Local Government Finance System: Overview and Challenges 17 new grant in each year announced at the spending review.80 We have previously discussed the significant uncertainty over the impact that the pandemic will have on business rates over the long term.81 The real-terms contribution of council tax over the spending review period is presently unclear as the future level of inflation is very uncertain.82 When we asked how they could be confident that additional funding would be sufficient to ensure both adult and children’s social care did not put more pressure on other services, the Department could not tell us how much of the additional grant funding would go toward meeting pressures in social care as this had not yet been determined by the government.83