Cllr Prentice Howarth - "Caring for Bolton"
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This is the text of a talk given at the Heaton & Lostock Labour Party's Annual General Meeting on 11th January 2006 by Cllr. Prentice Howarth, Bolton's labour Spokesperson on Social Services.
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Prentice began by thanking the Branch for inviting her to speak and she wished all members a happy New Year. She said that Social Services had been split into five groups covering the main areas that the former department had to deal with. Madeline Murray had been the Executive Member when Labour were in control and had guided the Council to the four star rating that it had received. The Department was regarded as the best in the North West and one of the best in the country, being held up as an example of best practice to others, doing well in advance the things that the government was later advocating.
Prentice was of the opinion that since Labour lost control the Lib-Dem administration has "let things go" and it's only because of the tremendous work that was done before their takeover that the four star rating has been maintained. I
n actual fact there is no longer a Social Services Department as such. The Council has an integrated Children's Services Department, combining education, health, welfare, etc. She said that the Lib-Dems are failing to take things forward. Bolton already had a monitoring system long before the recommendations of the report into the Climbié case, resulting from the Tommy Vaks case and took steps to prevent the recurrence of that type of atrocious treatment. Avondale and the Westhoughton centres have opened as refuges for children under threat.
There is also, of course, an Adult's Services Dept. but most of the topics on the agenda of the committee responsible for that service are not related to Adult Social Services since a whole lot of other, unrelated, topics have been added to their remit. The Department seems to be the dumping ground for subjects that none of the others want. It even deals with trading standards, museum acquisitions, CCTV at Smithills Hall, etc.
Prentice's introduction was followed by discussion and other points:
| John: | Our Chair of Scrutiny for Social Services should be shouting about this from the rooftops. |
| Clifford: | There seem to be terrible budgetary constraints too and possible cuts in the budget in the year ahead. |
| George: | The Lib-Dems are just not up to running the Council. They weren't ready to take control. |
| Pauline: | What's happening to all that expertise that we had? |
| Prentice: | Well, we have lots of good ideas and we would like to move things forward but we're not in control and we aren't going to do the Lib-Dems job for them. The integrated Children's Service is at least a distinct, understandable unit; but Adult Services is very big, undefined and seems to have everything else thrown into it. |
| Graham: | How much of this reorganisation was Bolton Council's doing and how much was proscribed by Government? How is it affecting delivery of services on the ground? |
| Clifford: | The Government said that there had to be integrated Children's Services but the rest of the reorganisation was left to the Councils and is the Lib-Dems doing. No reports on what has and hasn't been done ever seem to get issued. The job of caring for people is being carried out at the bottom but there is no vision, no forward thinking and this will lead to trouble. One of the problems with integrated Children's Services is that it is too education dominated and there should be a greater voice for the social services part of it. |
| George: | We should be shouting from the rooftops that it was Labour in Bolton that put the Council in the position of being awarded the four star rating. |
| Joyce: | The moral of the home help service is appallingly low and it's a disgrace at the way the workers in it have been treated. The service has moved to a seven day, three shift system and staff who won't change their previous working arrangements are being made redundant. |
| Clifford: | That's true but people do need seven day a week, 24 hour care and the new system would have had to have been introduced under a Labour administration. Those who do move to five out of seven day, shift working will be paid substantially more. He said that he had just asked how much the authority is paying for agency staff and the answer is that it spends £6 million per year plus £4 million on sick pay! |
Further points and discussion followed and Prentice was warmly thanked for her contribution to the meeting.
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