The capital limit increase to £27000 (£118000 if property involved) would have helped a lot of people but would have put a strain on LA funds. Additionally the LA would have the expense of maintaining personal budgets for anybody, including self funders, receiving care.
The LA would also have had to assess a fair charge for all care and in the case of residential care split the hotel and care costs. All this would have needed resources that many LA do not have, they were already starting to outsource this work.
As the BBC calculator showed many people would have to spend something like £150000 to reach the £72000 cap, several dying before they reached the cap.
I agree the following quote from the BBC article:-
Age UK's Caroline Abrahams said the delay was the right decision as introducing the cap now would have been a "distraction" at a time when the care system was in a state of "cataclysmic" decline.
"What matters now is that the government grasps the scale of the galloping crisis and uses the spending review to bring forward effective solutions."
She said she hoped the delay would lead to a rethink as the cap had been set too high in the first place.
Prof Martin Green, chief Executive of Care England, which represents care providers, said it was now time to come up with a "sustainable" solution "once and for all".
"If the government refuses to address the issue of funding, we will have a care system in crisis and the NHS unable to cope with the pressure," he added.