Care England has praised the Government’s confirmation that care homes will receive a full exemption from the new High Value Council Tax Surcharge, delivering the outcome the organisation had pressed ministers to adopt following months of sustained lobbying and direct engagement with Government.
Care England first raised concerns with the Government in February 2026, writing to the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government to warn that applying the surcharge to care homes would be economically counterproductive and place unnecessary financial pressure on essential services.
Following a formal response from HM Treasury, Care England continued its engagement with ministers, challenging the case for treating care homes differently from social landlords and calling for the same level of protection. This was reinforced through its formal consultation response in July, which explicitly argued that care homes and other long-term care accommodation must receive a full statutory exemption rather than a partial discount.
Care England’s representations were supported by analysis estimating that including care homes within the surcharge could impose £25 million to £33 million in additional annual costs across the sector, potentially placing further pressure on providers and increasing costs for local authorities and the NHS.
The Government has now confirmed that care homes will be fully exempt when the surcharge comes into force in April 2028, protecting qualifying properties from annual charges of between £2,500 and £7,500 and delivering the specific protection Care England had called for.
Professor Martin Green OBE, Chief Executive of Care England, said:
“This is a sensible decision by the Government and one that Care England has consistently argued for. Care homes are not the same as high-value private homes; they are principally places where people receive essential care and support, and it is good that this has been recognised.
We made this case directly to ministers and through the Government’s consultation, emphasising the importance of a full exemption rather than a partial discount. The confirmation provides welcome certainty for providers and ensures that money already stretched across care services will not be diverted towards another unnecessary cost. Through our research, we see a substantial gap between the price that’s paid for care by local authorities and the fair cost of care, alongside increasingly limited financial resilience among SME providers. In this context, helping providers by preventing a new cost amounting to thousands of pounds a year, which they would have been expected to absorb without support, is worth celebrating.
Though this has been announced against the backdrop of an Autumn Budget that has offered little in the way of meaningful support for adult social care. After the Prime Minister’s insistence that he would immediately grasp the nettle on social care, it’s a shame to have seen so little in the budget to address the much greater pressures providers continue to face, and to be left with only the prevention of an unreasonable future cost to celebrate.
The sector needs more than modest measures that simply prevent further financial pressure. It needs a Government prepared to tackle the fundamental challenges in how care is funded and commissioned, and to deliver the meaningful reform that providers, their workforce and the people they support have been waiting far too long to see.”
