Council targets Dales in cuts debate

North Yorkshire County Council is reviewing a host of its services after it emerged that the authority is faced with having to enforce cuts totalling £169m by 2018/19 - about a third less than the overall revenue budget it had only eight years previously.

One of the areas which is expected to be hit hard is the adult social care department, and a public consultation which is underway will this week target communities in remote parts of the Yorkshire Dales, including Wensleydale and Swaledale. A consultation event will be staged tomorrow between 1pm and 3pm at Simonstone Hall, near Hawes, to glean the public’s views on the planned social care shake-up.

The executive member for adult social care, Coun Clare Wood, has previously admitted the council would prefer to preserve services, but added the authority is “obliged to live in the real world” as swingeing funding cuts are enforced across the public sector.

Coun Wood said while every effort would be made to maintain the level of services wherever possible, a major revamp of the eligibility criteria is needed to cope with reductions in funding. The plans will see the withdrawal of social care support for more than 1,000 people as the council aids people judged to have “substantial” needs rather than just “moderate”.

But Coun Wood stressed the move would bring the council in line with 87 per cent of other authorities nationally. The council is currently one of only a handful of authorities which makes social care support available to people judged to have “moderate” needs.

The council is cutting a total of £92m in expenditure across its services to balance its budgets over the four financial years up until the end of 2014/15. But the situation for the following four years is even worse than first predicted, with the council now anticipating it will have to reduce spending by £77m – up from an initial forecast of £57.5m.

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