‘No votes’ in extra social services cash

Social services departments are losing out because “there are not
any votes” in giving them more money, a top councillor in Wales
said last week.

Shan Wilkinson, leading for the Welsh Local Government Association
on social services, made the admission in evidence to the national
assembly’s health and social services committee’s examination of
the Welsh response to the Victoria Climbie Report.

Conservative spokesperson Jonathan Morgan told the debate on the
annual report of the chief inspector of social services that this
“brass neck” comment underlined the “cultural problem” existing in
local government.

Health and social services minister Jane Hutt said she was
concerned about the “varying levels of commitment at a corporate
level to the importance of these services to local
communities”.

Wilkinson told Community Care after the debate: “I do not
agree always with the decisions and priorities of other
councillors. But this is a field in which there are not a lot of
votes.

“When you go from door to door, residents do not talk of wanting
more spent on social services.”