The budget that we have before us tonight disproportionately impacts the most vulnerable and poorest in our borough. Those who are sick, those who are mentally ill, those who are disabled and those who rely on council services and who struggle to navigate their way through daily life.
This Labour Administration has chosen to make these decisions and has chosen to bring the axe down on desperate residents who are still trying to get through COVID and in some cases haven’t left their homes for nearly a year.
It is these residents who are unable to care for themselves, who are in receipt of complex care packages and support who are going to be hardest hit.
Some 7,000 residents will see their care packages impacted in some way but most disturbing is impact this will have on the 2,500 residents who are in receipt of complex care. There will be a focused attention on their service packages because it is these residents who I am informed “cost more”. The numbers are astounding some 20% is expected in savings in these packages and to put that in to context savings of £17 million for 2021, 10.7 million in 2022 and 9.5 in 2023 are the headline figures in the People’s area. The overspend for Adult Social Care in quarter 3 alone is £21.3 million.
We have already seen the savage cuts to departments supporting these residents such as the abolition of the Disability Employment team and the Welfare Rights Team. The CATS transportation service who supported elderly residents who were housebound with their buses was also cut.
Even care beds are to be removed for those sick residents discharged from hospital. Don’t bother calling the contact centre if you are in trouble after all this because the support service is also being cut. And if you are housebound and feel isolated and nobody is able to help you and you want to contact the voluntary sector organisations; they too are expecting severe cuts.
Those vulnerable adults in the Peter Sylvester Centre will see it close and there is great uncertainty about their future provision.
The Auditors call it Corporate Blindness that has brought Croydon to its knees. I call it sheer incompetence. It is quite worrying that the strategic approach by this leadership has been to hit these people hardest. You shouldn’t be attacking the vulnerable you should be holding those people responsible for this mess accountable. More poor choices by this Administration. I oppose this budget
