The government has been called upon to provide greater support for equity release to fund rising care costs.

A new Smith Institute Report, ‘Making the Most of Equity Release: Perspectives from Key Players’ highlights the shortfall in adult social care funding and the resultant need to release housing wealth.

The authors of the report argue that equity release is growing and must form a larger part of the solution to this looming funding crisis.

The report claims that equity release can contribute towards the costs of social care but is misunderstood by homeowners and financial advisers. The authors suggest a number of solutions to help the industry play a bigger role in funding social care, including creating a single government department or Minister responsible for supporting equity release improving the quality of advice and fostering a greater degree of trust so that equity release becomes a major funding option streamlining of the complex regulations around equity release assisting banks in entering the equity release market providing better integration between financial products and the benefits system and incentivising the equity release industry to provide a greater set of suitable products.

Paul Hackett, director of the Smith Institute, said: “This report demonstrates that if we want to provide decent adult social care