Brighton & Hove City Council leader Jason Kitcat on protecting services

Councils are facing a double whammy of cuts in government funding combined with increasing demand for services as more of our residents get older. At the current rate money to provide all other local services – such as education, housing, libraries, and parks – will run out.

Social care services make up a third of the spending that we have control over. With mounting government cuts, we have little option but to look at ways of saving money within these areas. Over the past few years we’ve made small changes to social care services, mainly through consolidating care homes that have fewer people using them, and supporting vulnerable people access activities that they want to do around the city.

With the ‘personalisation’ scheme, elderly and disabled people are able to choose from a range of activities they would like to do with their allocated budget. This means that fewer are choosing to come to formal council-run day-care centres – instead going to the cinema or bingo for instance.

It’s great that people want to participate in all that our city has to offer. As a result however, our services at day-care centres are being used less.

So under the draft budget proposals we will continue to combine lesser-used residential and day centres – but still maintain the services themselves, albeit at different locations across the city.

It goes without saying that any changes can be very difficult for vulnerable people, and it’s not something that we undertake lightly. However unlike other councils we’re maintaining our eligibility criteria, meaning everyone who needs help will continue to get it.

The austerity consensus between the Tories and Labour in Westminster means that it’s crucial that we don’t just look to next year, but longer term to protect these services. Only by making difficult organisational changes will our essential social care services be able to survive.