Below is information circulated by campaigners on proposed council cuts to services for adults with learning difficulties.
Information by Campaigners
Tower Hamlets council are making huge cuts to essential support services for adults with learning difficulties and disabilities. These cuts are being made without notice, without consultation and without involving day service providers nor the people they support and their families and key workers.
The councils Priority 1 in their 3 year strategic plan is that people are aspirational, independent and have equal access to opportunities, yet the most vulnerable people are being denied this with the ongoing cuts to services. What kind of aspirations can the most vulnerable people in our community have when essential support that helped everyone to achieve so much is being cut?
The 3 year strategic plan also aims to reduce inequality, yet those who have no voice are going to suffer disproportionately through the cuts in their essential services. This will create greater levels of inequality where the most vulnerable people in our community will denied opportunities to access to the services that supported them before.
Priority 2 is for residents to be proud of living in the borough, but what kind of community do we want? One where the most vulnerable suffer more than other people? The council say they want a cohesive and vibrant community but the essential services that support people with learning difficulties and disabilities to be active in the community are being taken away from them.
The Priority 3 is to be transparent, with residents at the heart of what the council do and to work together across boundaries in strong effective partnerships, yet the council are making these cuts without being open, no consultation and creating more barriers to partnership working with voluntary sector being ignored throughout this process. A vibrant, innovative and effective voluntary sector is being cut down just when it is needed most.
Adults with learning difficulties and disabilities are having:
- Day service provision cut with some organisations struggling to remain active. These services have worked tirelessly throughout the COVID-19 pandemic to continue supporting vulnerable people in our community, yet this work is being undervalued.
- Their support plans reviewed over the phone with normal standards of professional protocols being dropped and key support for each person being locked out of these reviews. People are having little if any choice over what support they can access and what services they can attend.
- Choice and opportunities taken away from them that will have a significant impact on their ongoing health and wellbeing. Families and vulnerable people have coped amazingly well during the pandemic but are finding it increasingly difficult to cope and long term the physical and mental health of families will suffer.
- Families are struggling to support their vulnerable adults with little or no support yet the council take the view that as they have managed so far, they no longer require the essential support that had supported them before.
This in a human rights issue for the most vulnerable people in our community who have no voice to speak up against these cuts themselves.
The cabinet are meeting on 28th October 2020 to decide on huge budget cuts to day service provision for adults with learning difficulties and disabilities with an ongoing financial strategy to continue cutting services at a time when people need them most.
We want:
- The council to stop the process of significantly cutting essential services
- Be open about their plans for the future of these services and how money is being spent to ensure vulnerable people and their families have the support they need to live a life they would choose
- Commit to working together with providers and those people who need support to plan for the future of these essential services
- Commit to maintaining a vibrant, innovative and varied range of services and opportunities for vulnerable people through funding of the essential services that have worked tirelessly to support people through this difficult time
Text sent out to cabinet members commissioners and providers
Dear providers,
On 28th October the council cabinet will be meeting to discuss huge cuts to the day services learning disability budget.
‘The proposal includes previously agreed savings of £317,000 per year from 2021-22 and proposes additional savings of £252,000 as part of the 2021-24 Medium-Term Financial Strategy.’
We have all had our funding cut and some organisations are issuing redundancy notices to staff and we have been told from commissioners that some services will not survive this monthly round of cuts – they are prepared for some of us to close. Remember when we were told the council did not want anyone to make redundancies? We were told not to put staff on the furlough scheme?
The previous tender was a cost cutting exercise and this looks very much like preparing the ground work for a revised tender. Remodelling of day care support and focus on access hubs will be part of a new tender that is likely to come out of this with the aim of pushing through the cuts. When challenged commissioners have said they are not considering the tender in any way.
The mayor’s own 3 year strategic plan talks of an active voluntary and community sector; and of a partnership committed to collaborative working around priority outcomes. It also talks about a council that is transparent to its residents. The vibrant, innovative and diverse sector we belong to will be lost with these cuts and as many of us have experienced, there is little if any transparency in the difficult and often extremely stressful process we have all been made to go through as part of the boroughs response to COVID-19. How many questions and points of clarification remain ignored and how many times have we been fed shallow excuses for why we have not been paid?
Also notice how all the hard work and effort we have all put in to supporting people has been reduced to: ‘A number of day services have been remodelled to provide bespoke support to individuals through telephone contact, home visits and supporting people to get out into the community.’
That is a shocking statement that does not include: developing and running online sessions – many of us have adapted our provision with no support or help from the CCG. Supporting people isolated and excluded by helping them to get online, giving out equipment such as tablets and Chrome books, art materials and producing a range of activities and resources to send out. As well as contacting people via video calls, running online one to one sessions, producing videos to explain the often confusing and mixed messages around COVID-19 and the various restrictions in place. Producing information and videos about being healthy and active, online cooking sessions, games and many more ways of engaging with the vulnerable people we support.
There is no value placed on this amazing work by commissioners as they reduce everything down to costed hours.
We have all, throughout this time, gone above and beyond to support families and vulnerable people yet there has been no recognition of that hard work and commitment from us and our staff. Instead, vulnerable people are having their support plans changed and cuts being made to the services they receive without involvement of providers.
The assumption is that as people and families have coped during this difficult time they no longer need day service provision or support. Families and individuals have done amazingly under difficult circumstances and we have all worked extremely hard to support them. From our own work people have said without our support and online sessions they would have struggled with their own physical and mental health – we have been a lifeline, as many of you have all been through the amazing work you have done.
There are so many stories from vulnerable people and their families where they have been told the essential services they have had before are to be cut and we have had to find out from them about these cuts. There are so many stories from families of how distressing this has been and added to this is the fact they often do not know who is calling them – someone from the council who did not give their name. Vulnerable people we have all supported are expecting to return to services, that the closures are temporary but they have had their services cut, without being told or being asked to choose between day service provision and home based support. Without the essential support from us all to those who have had their services cut these vulnerable people will be left at home with nothing or very little support, with families and individuals reporting they have had little or no contact from social services during their time of need. But the value of what we have all been doing is not recognised.
We have to ask ourselves what kind of community do we want for the future? One where budgets dictate services so that every year there are cuts to essential support that people have relied on for their own wellbeing. Or one where needs drive the kind of diverse and vibrant sector that offers innovative services that help the vulnerable in our community to live a life they would choose and become active participants in a thriving community?
Look up the list of cabinet members and contact them, tell them what you have been doing and how the process we have gone through has impacted those we support, their families and how the cuts will destroy the sector for the future. Tell them about what has been happening and how as providers we have been treated. Tell them this is a humans right issue where the most vulnerable people in the community deserve a voice and to have a say in what they would want their support services to look like in the future. Talk about how desperate families and the people you support are to return to day service provision and continue to be supported in the unique ways we have developed our services to meet the changing needs. This will be lost with the cuts proposed and as we were told recently in a meeting with commissioners – some of us will not survive this process. Lets turn that round and challenge the cuts and seek to find a way forward that better meets the needs of the community we have all served with our hard work throughout the pandemic and beyond. Ask about the consultation and who will be part of that process. Ask about equalities impact assessment and what information they are using the decide that these cuts will ensure vulnerable people will be supported as they are now.
https://democracy.towerhamlets.gov.uk/mgIssueHistoryHome.aspx?IssueId=109185&OptionNum=0
An agenda should be published 5 days in advance here
https://democracy.towerhamlets.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=720&MId=11327
We need to support people who access our service to have a voice and to say what services they need for the future and for us all to be part of any consultation that will have a huge impact on the valuable work we do with the most vulnerable people in our community.
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