Poor lookout for Supporting People

12.00.00am GMT Thu 3rd Nov 2005

The County Council's Conservative Cabinet has already ruled out the possibility of finding any new money in the budget for 2006-2007 should the Government's threatened cut to the Supporting People grant be implemented.

"We were putting a marker in the sand," said Cllr Janet Godden, Liberal Democrat spokesperson for social care and community services. "Budget discussions start this month, and we asked the Cabinet for an undertaking that they would do all they could to fund part of the shortfall if the grant is cut - we know that funding the whole shortfall might be wholly beyond the Council's means.

"Supporting People is a triumph in the difference it has made to the lives of many people who depend on housing-related support - such as frail elderly people or people with disabilities. But the funding has been a disaster and Oxfordshire's programme has been severely hit by Government cuts barely three years in. Responsibility for picking up the funding for many schemes now looks likely to fall on Social & Health Care, which is the Department under the greatest pressure as it is.

"Really the Cabinet is extraordinary in its apparent unwillingness to take seriously anything unrelated to the motor car."