Liberal Democrat Budget - Social & Community Services (Oxfordshire Liberal Democrats)

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Liberal Democrat Budget - Social & Community Services

February 10, 2009 10:21 AM
By Cllr Janet Godden in County Council

This budget was drawn up in the glum recollection of this group's motion to last September's council meeting proposing that the Leader of the Council, the Chief Executive and the Director of Adult Services should seek an interview with the Minister for social care in order to outline the need for more funding for social care. The motion was deliberately gerrymandered off the agenda, so I suppose we should conclude that the Conservative group is happy with things as they are. Their budget comes as no surprise.

The Liberal Democrat group budget does not have as much extra anywhere as any of us would like, and in particular - from my point of view - it does not have as much as we would want for adult social care. But nor does it make unrealistic expectations about income generation from parking charges, or rob Peter to pay Paul by reintroducing Park & Ride charges for commuters.

In order not to spread the little that we can allocate so thinly as to be useless we have focused within social care on services for older people, where the service reductions actually amount to more than the pressures.

Within older people's services we have allocated an additional £250k to extending services for older carers who will bear the brunt of any hitches of funding insufficiences associated with the 'transformation' of services to keep more people at home for longer. We also recognise the problems and anxieties of older parents of middle aged children with learning disabilities. We see that the Corporate Plan commits itself only to increasing the number of carers receiving a needs assessment and specific service or advice and information to 20% in 09-10. 20! That looks like a target that could do with some stretching.

We have put £235k more than the Conservatives into Occupational Therapy and equipment, recognising that the demands on this crucial service are constantly increasing. It is evident that the availability of better equipment at home is a key factor in enabling people to be discharged from hospital, and we are not convinced by assurances given at Scrutiny that it can stand a reduction of £235k against pressures of £400k. We are mindful of a reduction in funding for residential homes that is justified by the provision of better home equipment.

Last, we are concerned about the huge pressure of £1m from 'Savings not identified in 08-09'. We think it is sheer whistling in the wind to think that all the measures proposed will do the trick. These are the things that did not work last year, and some of them look pretty undesirable. We have put in £133k to be used where it is most needed.

We have put in a one-off sum of £50k into the Money Management service to help it to reduce its backlog and facilitate the introduction of a new database. This service helps those across all client groups who lack the capacity to handle their financial affairs, whether older people, people with learning difficulties or people with mental health problems. Without this support these people are liable to serious financial exploitation, or end up needing more services through becoming unintentionally homeless. This service was a casualty of the Shared Services bedding in process. It was required to shed staff and was then unable to catch up.

Finally, our group, had nothing left to spare for the museums service. If we had had, however, we might not have allocated it to West Oxfordshire which had a disproportionate amount of extra funding last year.