Social care campaigners have urged chancellor Jeremy Hunt to forget tax cuts and provide urgently needed support for the sector in this week’s Budget.

The Independent Car Group (ICG) said it was time to properly fund social care ahead of Wednesday’s announcement by the chancellor.

ICG chair Mike Padgham said: “We call upon Jeremy Hunt to resist the temptation for tax cuts and instead look at enabling local authorities to invest in the local delivery of care to their most vulnerable people.

“He will probably not need reminding, but when Jeremy Hunt was chair of the Health and Social Care Committee, he said social care needed an extra £7 billion a year just to stand still. It is time to start delivering on that.”

Padgham said local authorities, who commission care from providers, had seen their budgets cut savagely in the past three decades. This had meant they were commissioning less care and also squeezing down on the price they pay in fees to providers.

“This results in care providers handing back delivery contracts and in the worst cases, ceasing to operate at all,” he added. “At the same time, a lack of proper funding is exacerbating the worst staff shortages the sector has ever seen, with 152,000 vacancies across the country.

“We have to see some changes otherwise more and more people will go without the care they need – be that care in their own home or in a care or nursing home. We already know 1.6 million people can’t get the care they need – that number will inevitably rise as local authorities cut spending on care and providers reduce delivery or exit the market.”

The ICG is campaigning for social care reform to be included in the main political parties’ manifestos ahead of the next general election. It wants to see fresh thinking on social care reform, the creation of a National Care Service and better funding into the sector so that social care workers can be properly paid.