Warning over £1m shortfall in budget for care of vulnerable

Liberal Democrat leaders are heading for a showdown with Labour opponents who have challenged York Council chiefs to open the books on the running of Adult Social Services.

Figures being presented to York's health scrutiny committee next week show average national spending on the service is 7,200 per package of care but York spends just 5,800. For older people's care the country's average is 979 per pensioner but in York it is 696.

Committee chairman James Alexander said yesterday: "Officers have said this makes York more vulnerable to rising costs than most other authorities.

"There is no more slack in the system. Either the administration needs to cough up more money or reduce services. That is it. People will feel justifiably annoyed that we could be looking at drastic cuts in services.

"The 1.1m overspend is very serious. The council will need to take drastic action to deal with their adult social services funding.

"Any savings will now have a significant impact on service users. I am not confident of any solution being found by the council that will not be detrimental in some way to service users."

Coun Alexander added: "I don't want to scaremonger or presuppose the recommendations of the committee, but job losses are an option. People will be wondering what we pay our council tax for.

"Rather than looking at the seriousness of the situation and showing leadership, the administration is blaming the Government for not giving them more money."

He said it was clear from the report that the council entered the year in danger of not being able to balance its books. He added: "I think questions need to be asked as to why such risks were taken with essential services effecting people's lives."

The growth in required spending had been known about and he blamed lack of leadership for poor planning. "It feels like the service has been working to a budget written on the back of a fag packet," he added.

The vice-chairman of the scrutiny committee, Coun Sian Wiseman, added: "Decisions have been made without the executive member giving the committee any information."

But Liberal Democrat scrutiny committee member Sue Galloway said: "I can't understand what they're talking about. The money we have been able to spend has always been historically low, even when Labour were in charge.

"I am not sure what point they are trying to make. We have always had a high proportion of people with learning difficulties in York and have spent more on them than elderly people quite frankly." She dismissed talk of job cuts as "scaremongering".

The city's director of adult social services, Bill Hodson, said the council had a duty to provide many of the services and further cuts could have a direct impact.

He said: "There are 70 young people, many with very complex needs, who we already know will be coming into adult services over the next three to five years and who will have a statutory right to have a service, with the annual cost of care likely to be in excess of 3m."

Measures could include rationing of placements into residential and nursing care, longer waiting lists for services such as home care, extending the time taken to complete care assessments and packages, and cutting day care or respite care.

There could also be a recruitment freeze of front line posts and a review of who is entitled to services, since York currently operated a relatively generous system, he added.