The housing and communities secretary has today revealed details of this year’s local government finance settlement, including £150m of extra funding for adult social care.

Sajid Javid made the announcement this morning, while also unveiling a further £31m for rural services, almost double the amount detailed in draft settlements.

The news has received mix responses, although many commentators have applauded government efforts to deal with the projected £2.3bn funding gap expected to develop by 2020.

In his statement to parliament, Javid said the further social care funding would not affect the commitments made to other areas of local government because the money will be taken from “anticipated underspend in existing departmental budgets.”

The secretary also confirmed the continuation of the social care precept, meaning councils can charge a further tax on residents, with returns specifically earmarked for social care.

Lord Porter, chairman of the LGA, said the government had not gone far enough to improve the situation for councils. He claimed that the extra funding would only solve issues temporarily and again urged ministers to allow authorities to keep 100% of business rate receipts.

“The additional one-off social care funding announced today is a temporary measure and needs to be compared against an annual social care funding gap of £2.3bn by 2020,” he commented.

“Councils in England face an overall funding gap that will exceed £5bn by 2020. We remain clear that the government needs to allow local government to keep every penny of business rates collected to plug this growing funding gap and provide the £1.3bn needed right now to stabilise the care provider market.”

Porter also said errors in the Valuation Office Agency data used to calculate the charges and awards councils will be subject to from the tariff business rates system meant more than half of councils would receive less money.