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Assuming councils have to cut some services, where does the axe fall?

An article on The Guardian website written by the Conservative leader of Oxfordshire Council, Keith Mitchell, suggests libraries.

However, the bookish county has risen up, with its literati adding their outrage to the general disapproval. 

Understandable, too. Morally, libraries should not shut, particularly as UK literacy rates continue to be a concern.

As a side issue, is not the running of them by volunteers one of the prime functions of a Big Society?

However, back to the point: cuts there will be. And Mitchell says it is better to cut library services than social care, although he would do well to remember that in February his council did vote for "savings" of £119m in adult care over four years.

Nevertheless, it was encouraging to read an article by someone who has a bit of reputation for verbalising what the right of the Tory party thinks actually speaking up for social care.

He ends the article: "Everyone involved in social care has a critical role to raise the public profile of social care. I am afraid the village shop, school, pub and library will always score highly with electors because of their visibility while the importance of social care will remain invisible to most electors until they or their loved ones need it."

Convinced? Let me know below.

Picture: Rex Features

The campaign to save the Supporting People centre featured in last week's blog about homelessness has stepped up a gear with the launch of another video.

Salford Council has signalled it is to cut funding to Lancaster House, a project that helps homeless single men kick-start their lives and run by charity Positive Lifestyles.

Without the scheme, the 38 service users would find themselves without a roof over their heads and prospects for changing their lives much diminished.

The latest video on You Tube (below) is a TV news-style production featuring staff and local people who want to save Lancaster House.

The campaign is also running on Facebook and Twitter and this week a petition, which can be signed online, passed 8,000 signatures.

If this facility closes, not only will it turn on to the streets up to 38 men but it will threaten the very ethos of Supporting People.

The campaign continues ahead of the council meeting on 1 August, which is due to confirm the closure of Lancaster House.

One of the most obdurate memories of the Thatcher years was the seemingly perpetual rise in homelessness, particularly among teenagers, many of whom became casualties of a ruthless change in the benefits system.

They arrived in London from other parts of the country to find the streets paved not with gold but with - literally - their fellow travellers. They remained on the streets because the hostels and refuges where they could otherwise have sheltered were either full or unsafe. 

Nearly a quarter of a century later, rough sleeping is on the increase again. The charity Broadway reports an 8% rise in the past year in the number of rough sleepers on the capital's streets, for example.

And some projects that try to reinvigorate the lives of homeless people - the voluntary groups that are David Cameron's epitome of the Big Society - are struggling.

One of these is the Salford-run Positive Lifestyles, a non-profit making charity. But its Supported Living centre for single men, Lancaster House, is under threat because of budget cuts by the Labour-run council.

Although the council insists no firm decision has been made, the charity is taking no chances and has launched a Save Lancaster House campaign on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube (below).

The message is simple: shut Lancaster House and 38 people will be homeless.

What then? Thirty-eight more cases for Salford's adults' services? Or will the 38 just drift, 1980s-style, on to the streets to embark upon a life of anonymity?

Picture: Rex Features

That semi-dormant organisation the Care Quality Commission is about to stir from its slumber in order to investigate why learning disabled service users at Winterbourne View hospital in Bristol were subjected to such appalling abuse. 

The care regulator will be reviewing all of provider Castlebeck's services and has been ordered by the Department of Health to carry out unannounced inspections of a sample of learning disability hospitals.

Moreover, it will be attempting to find out why it ignored information passed to it by Winterbourne whistleblower Terry Bryant. Not once, not twice, but three times.

From a distance, this multiple oversight looks like incompetence. So why should we have any faith in the CQC's ability to investigate its own role in the case? Or will the regulator's powers-that-be disregard their own request three times as they did the charge nurse's disclosures?

Unlikely, but they probably should.

Then they should offer up their organisation to an independent, external party to examine whether it is fit for purpose.

Picture: BBC/Panorama

Was anyone else as disappointed as me in the Which? report on care home standards?

Disappointed that, in two of the four residential homes surveyed, the food was unappetising and inadequate.

Disappointed that residents had to wait for up to 17 hours between meals.

Disappointed about the lack of activity in all of the homes.

Disappointed that a case of physical abuse in one of the homes was comparable to the treatment meted out in Guantanamo Bay, according to the National Pensioners Convention. 

But more than that, disappointed that Which? has chosen not to reveal the names of the offending establishments.

This is a curious decision because the Consumers' Association publication is more than willing to name names in its reviews of PCs, travel deals, insurance rates and so on - all sectors where questions of life or death are not so pressing an issue.

In its defence, Which? says it has passed on the names of the substandard homes to the Care Quality Commission. 

But with unannounced CQC inspections having been wound down so much they have virtually ended, one can only wonder when these care homes will get their comeuppance.

These are, after all, places where vulnerable people will spend the final years of their lives. Many of them will have relatives unaware of the shocking conditions and treatment. As a final insult, the same relatives may be paying for the "care".

To avoid further disappointment, it would be proper for Which? to unmask the offenders.

Or, if a sense of inhibition prevails, Community Care's adult care team is awaiting a call on 020 8652 4857. 

It was already known that chancellor George Osborne was minded to merge national insurance and income tax. Yesterday we found out that he meant it as he announced a consultation on the issue during his Budget statement. 

On the surface, a merger would sound common sense, if only for the sakes of simplicity and modernity. National insurance contributions were introduced in 1911, initially to provide pensions, but were the platform for the post-second world war welfare state.

Guaranteeing an income for people who became unemployed, the contributions also funded a universal health service free at the point of delivery. NI was even administered by its own body.

The Inland Revenue has since taken over collection and the contributions have become an extension of the tax-raising mechanism for governments that kid themselves they are freezing personal taxation.

So, a good idea from a chancellor intent on transparency?

Perhaps. It would be speculation to pre-judge the consultation but it is possible that older people's watchdogs may need to turn guard dogs.

Why? From 6 April pensioners will pay tax on income above £9,940. What they will not be paying - and never have - is national insurance. Merging income tax and national insurance would increase the tax take from older people, whose income in any case is stagnating or even falling.

It follows that those on incomes just above the threshold would be hit hardest from a merged tax system.

Unless, that is, the government introduces a pensioners' threshold, in itself a complication to what is intended to be a simplified system administered by an organisation renowned for its IT glitches. 

We also need to be told what will happen to employers' national insurance contributions. Will these be rolled into corporation tax? Unlikely, but, if they are, tax take will be dependent on the economy's performance as companies' profits wax and wane. On the other hand, employers' contributions may be abolished, handing the private sector another tax cut.

But someone will have to pay. You and me?

Not being one to kick a care home provider when it's down, I have been following closely the misfortunes of Southern Cross Healthcare.

I was intrigued, then, to read the comment of its spokesperson, Ben Brewerton, as he attempted to reassure the families of the provider's 31,000 residents that Southern Cross would not be going into administration.

The residents, he said, would "not see any changes in the way the care is delivered".

This is not necessarily good news. Sixteen of Southern Cross's establishments failed to achieve a single star when the Care Quality Commission's inspectors called in spring 2010 before the inspections were abolished.

Radio 4's Face the Facts investigated the exploitation of immigrant workers in care homes. The overriding conclusion was that an improvement in the employment regulation system was overdue.

The programme focused on two workers, one from the Philippines, the other from Romania. Their experiences shamed our system and attitudes towards foreign labour.

Justice must be seen to be done. It's a maxim that has never applied to the Court of Protection, which makes decisions on behalf of people whose mental capacity is impaired.

But a landmark ruling in the High Court, after a campaign led by The Independent newspaper, is bringing the Court of Protection out of the shadows and will allow hearings to be attended by the media, which can report on them.