Mulgrew should resign, says Danczuk

Date published: 27/11/2007

Rochdale’s Labour Parliamentary Candidate Simon Danczuk has called for Councillor Dale Mulgrew to do the right thing and resign following the Commission for Social Care Inspection’s damning report on Rochdale Council’s Adult Care Service.

Commenting after the Council’s social services to older people had been downgraded to a one star service after the report revealed systemic failure, Mr Danczuk said he was shocked to hear that the Council Cabinet Member for Health amp; Social Care was planning to drive through reforms that many feel will make the service even worse.

He said: "Councillor Mulgrew’s response to this catalogue of errors just shows that the Lib Dems are out of their depth and unable to manage vital services for vulnerable people. His response is to hurry through privatisation changes, which a thousand signature petition has already opposed. Unison have said these changes will be "disastrous’ for service users, many care workers are against them and even people in his own party in Rochdale have spoken out against these changes.

"There is no consensus to introduce these reforms and Councillor Mulgrew is running the risk of damaging people’s confidence in these services even further and leaving the Borough’s most vulnerable people feeling abandoned. At its best this is disastrous knee-jerk leadership. But at its worst this is real incompetence and Councillor Mulgrew must accept responsibility and resign.

"The only sensible response is to place a moratorium on the home care changes and undertake a proper review of how to improve the existing services."

"Councillor Mulgrew’s answer to the catalogue of failures highlighted in this inspection report is to pay off the head of service who oversaw those failures with early retirement and a golden handshake, then to simply privatise the service. His judgement has to be questioned. It’s no way to spend public money, it’s no way to treat our most vulnerable residents and it no way to manage front line workers."

"How can residents in Rochdale have any confidence in politicians when they see Councillor Mulgrew refusing to accept personal responsibility for taking Adult Care Services backwards? And what message does it send out when the head of Adult Care Services, Stephen Netherwood, is pensioned off and given "early retirement’?"

"In recent weeks we’ve seen Councillor Hobhouse refuse to resign after bringing council business into total disrepute and now we’ve seen Councillor Mulgrew try to wriggle his way out of accepting responsibility for failing to deliver adequate Adult Care Services. If we’re to restore public confidence in politics in Rochdale then we have to see some proper accountability."