Members of Northamptonshire County Council have approved “radical cuts” to authority spending, which will affect both children’s and adults’ social services.
Gathering yesterday (9 August) for an “extraordinary” full council meeting, members agreed to cost cutting measures laid out by chief finance officer Mark McLaughlin last week.
Per the budget recovery action plan, spending on learning difficulties in adults’ services will be stripped back as the authority looks to downgrade to a “core offer”. Meanwhile, council chiefs will scrutinise the number of referrals and numbers within the children’s care system.
However safeguarding vulnerable children and adults and the “substantial needs of older people” were highlighted as spending priorities.
County council leader Matt Golby, said: “The budget recovery action plan and the approval of our core services demonstrates our commitment to making the difficult but necessary decisions to stabilise our budget.
“We have a clear plan in place for how we are going to do this, and the spending priorities we’ve now agreed as a council will be used to assess all spend in the council and identify where savings can be made.
Reviewing contracts
Golby added that the council would look closely at its contracts with third party suppliers, which currently make up 70% of total spend. He admitted the process of reviewing these against the new priorities of the authority’s offer would be “a large piece of work”.
“This will not be an easy process and there will be difficult decisions ahead, but we are determined to protect services for the most vulnerable in our communities while bringing the council’s spending under control.”
In the coming weeks, members will assess the impact of the plans on individual services and jobs within the authority.
Assistive technology and dementia: practice tips 
A trauma-informed approach to social work: practice tips 
Find out how to develop your emotional resilience with our free downloadable guide 
Develop your social work career with Community Care’s Careers and Training Guide 
‘Dear Sajid Javid: please end the inappropriate detention of autistic people and those with learning disabilities’
Ofsted calls for power to scrutinise children’s home groups
Seven in eight commissioners paying below ‘minimum rate for home care’
Facebook
X
LinkedIn
Instagram
Yet again, the Tories mess things up and vulnerable children and families suffer.
Some of this is very confusing Northamptonshire County Council are stating there will be radical cuts to both children’s and adults’ social services.
Spending priorities will be safeguarding vulnerable children and adults and the “substantial needs of older people”.
But spending on learning difficulties in adults’ services will be stripped back.
Here there appears to be confusion in the terminology, is the reference to learning difficulites also including learning disabilities, where some say they are the same, whereas, others say they are different.
Many persons with learning isabilities will be as vulnerable as ‘older people’ and in many instances more vulnerable, especially when considering timescales. For older people will have a some what limited lifespan wheras people with learning disabilities will have a much larger lifespan, especially now that they are in many instances living longer, even to be included within older people. This is due to the continued advances in extending age with regards to medical advancements, where without these advancement many persons with learning disabilities would not have come through to be adults.
Now are the people with learning disabilities included in the spending priorities will reference to safeguarding vulnerable children and adults, or is this just a reference to when safeguarding alters are raised.
Very confusing.