Council hypocrisy and spin condemned

Councillor Colin Lambert

Labour Councillor Colin Lambert has added to a chorus of calls for Rochdale Council to cease the 'spin' and to acknowledge a serious failure of service. He said: "Rochdale Council Leadership, controlled by the ten member Liberal Democrat Councillors, have shown scant regard for the older members of our community in their response to the damning criticism by the Inspectors report."

He added: "This is the council who have in the last week forced their own Cabinet member for Finance Cllr William Hobhouse to resign from Cabinet for increasingly erratic behaviour, faced the offer of resignation from another Lib Dem Cabinet member and now is allowing the Head of Social Care to retire early.

"But, they claim there is good to come from the damming report on their handling of adult and social care.

"This is a report which that states, a number of strategic plans were under developed or not in place, poorly coordinated and lacking in precision.

"Managers were unaware of the experience of service users - their inadequate arrangements had an unacceptable impact on the safeguarding of adults.

"The older persons service as a whole was let down by the absence of coherent and focused detailed commissioning.

"Scrutiny of the service by councillors had been ineffective and insufficiently rigorous.

"But, what do we hear from the Cabinet.

"They say there is much good in the report. I ask which town are they living in, clearly not the one which, our older people are living in.

"Recently, they claimed that our criticism of their cuts in home care was not happening, but in their response, they say they will speed up the cuts and reduction in home care.

"I ask now that they reflect upon the failure of a service they have been in charge of and that they give serious consideration to the demand asked at Heywood Township and since repeated by the Conservative group. Review immediately what you have been doing and importantly what you have not been doing.

"At the very least suspend your cuts in home care for the most vulnerable and retain the in house care workers, whom the elderly say they trust and want to remain."