Council's Supported Living proposals removed from savings programme

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Vigil against Council's proposed cuts to adult care services

The removal of the highly controversial Supported Living Group Homes proposals from the Council’s savings programme was approved at a cabinet meeting on Monday evening (23 January), after a staggering 70% strongly disagreed with the proposals during the consultation period.

186 responses were received 70% strongly disagreed, 24% disagreed and just 4% agreed with the adult care proposals.

Campaigners had taken their legal battle against Rochdale Council to the High Court seeking a Judicial Review of the Council’s consultation on proposed changes to the way it provides care and accommodation for vulnerable and disabled adults.

http://www.rochdaleonline.co.uk/news-features/2/news-headlines/106958/

Recommendations within the accompanying report read: “It is recommended that Cabinet remove the proposal to make savings from the remodelling of Supported Living Group Homes from the 2017/18 and 2018/19 savings programme, thereby removing the proposal from the decision making process to finalise a balanced budget at the Council meeting on 1 March 2017.”

It was also recommended that the Cabinet approve further engagement with stakeholders and service users to provide additional information regarding supported living in Rochdale and the advantages and disadvantages of all options under consideration.

Director of Adult Care, Sheila Downey, said: “The recent debate about reducing costs has become entangled with debate about reducing choice.

“It has allowed some to misunderstand the proposals and unfortunately left some with the wrong idea.”

Leader of the Council, Richard Farnell, said: “Perhaps it was wrong to include in the savings proposal. We can vastly improve the choice and range of care across the borough; we can have this better service that is cheaper.”

Reasons for the recommendation as given within the accompanying document included concerns that the proposal was put into place to make financial savings, concern that the options proposed were designed to reduce costs and ‘difficulty to be definitive about the amount of savings that could be realised and when’.

The accompanying report adds the 2017/18 savings will be achieved as a result of increased resources being available to adult care following the Local Government Settlement. Savings for 2018/19 will be met by one-off funding.

It should be noted that Adult Care Commissioners still intend to engage with service users and their families, stakeholders and providers to further develop a wider range of care and accommodation options for all people with learning disabilities to better meet their needs in the future, required by the Care Act.

This will affect the full financial proposal put forward.

Ms Downey said: “I’d like to thank everyone who took part in our extensive and wide-ranging consultation. After listening to people’s views [the] Cabinet has decided that we do not include the remodelling of supported living proposal as a budget saving option in the council’s savings plan. We have been clear throughout that our proposals are about enhancing and improving the offer for people with learning disabilities, not about saving money. As such, we don’t want to distract from our plans to offer an increased choice of care and accommodation services for people. We will be further engaging with stakeholders as we continue to develop a wide-range of supported living options in the best interests of all service users and their families.”