Cuts in Care for the Elderly Budget

10.08.26am GMT Mon 23rd Jan 2006

Letter to Oxford Times, from Janet Godden, Lib Dem spokesperson on Social and Community Services

Dear Sir

The Conservative Party's budget for the County Council cannot both hold down the council tax increase to 4.375% and invest 'to meet the administration's priorities' (20 January) without disinvesting in services that are not the administration's priorities.

Lowest among the administration's priorities, plainly, is services for the elderly - the very services that the public would most like to see increased according to a recent MORI poll of public opinion across Oxfordshire. Services for older people face a funding gap of £2.5m notwithstanding heavy increase in charges. These services are already hard to obtain and offer very little Choice (to use a favourite Conservative mantra). This is largely because for the past few years the Council has adopted a head in the sand attitude towards the increasing numbers of elderly, and particularly very elderly, people in the county's population. Liberal Democrats have constantly pointed out the need to allow for this in budget-setting, and it is a great pity that the Conservative administration has not seen fit to put this right as part of the thorough review of the council's finances, on which it congratulates itself so loudly.

So it is with particular satisfaction that we read that Conservative Cllr Don Seale admits that there are heavy cuts in social care services in the budget for 2006/07- which at the moment the rest of his group denies - and that he is of the same opinion as we are as to their severity. There are three weeks in which he can persuade his colleagues to adopt a more civilised policy with regard to older people. We can only hope that the Older People's Champion will join him and that together they will succeed in doing so.

Yours faithfully

Cllr Janet Godden