ER Magazine // BUDGET


page 17


• Communities experience fewer incidents of vandalism, street disorder and anti-social behaviour.


4


• Community safety and public protection is safeguarded.


• Residents are protected from harm and abuse and their dignity and human rights are respected.


• Our vulnerable residents are able to live as safely and independently as possible in the community and have control over their care and support.


• Carers’ roles in providing care are recognised and valued.


• People are improving their health and well being by recovering from problematic drug and alcohol use.


The majority of council services that deliver


safer, supported communities are delivered by the Community Health and Care Partnership, a partnership between East Renfrewshire Council and NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, and a network of external providers who are contracted to deliver services on behalf of the CHCP. In 2014/15 we are investing £16.2m in this area. This includes £10.8m on learning disability services, £3.2m to support local people with physical or sensory disability and £2.4m to provide mental health services. To offset some of our costs we will generate £5m in income by charging for some of our services. Through community safety services we are spending £1.4m to keep our streets safe via our CCTV and Community Warden Service and will manage our 24-hour community alarm service, helping to support elderly residents to remain living independently in their own homes. Between 2015 and 2018 we intend to make a total


of £3m savings in this area. £1.1m will be delivered by changing how we do things internally, through efficiencies such as redesigning our internal structures and the introduction of agile working for staff, a review of charges, and by further reducing our support services to the leanest possible level. Further savings of £1.2m will also be made from service reviews that are already underway and agreed in the last round of budget savings. A large contributor to our savings will involve changes to the way we currently procure services from external organisations working on our behalf to provide packages of care. We believe that many of the changes proposed, whilst significant, will provide individuals with greater control over their care packages.


Safer, supported communities East Renfrewshire residents are safe and supported in their communities and homes.


£720,000 will be delivered by redesigning our


services and by reducing some of the services that we currently provide. This will mean that our clients will be required to access services in a different way. Some of the services we currently provide will be less visible and others will change significantly.


Learning Disability Support: £356,000 This saving relates to the on-going redesign of a number of learning disability services as we move towards Self Directed Support (SDS). The purpose of SDS is to enable people to manage their own care budget so that they can purchase the package of care that best meets their individual needs. To achieve this saving we are reviewing the range of directly provided and commissioned services on offer to people with learning disabilities, we believe we can make substantial savings in how such services are purchased by the CHCP. Our proposal will impact on people who require supported living and those living in the community, and will mean that the care budget for each individual will be reduced, in part by the introduction of neighbourhood networks of support and the greater use of telecare where appropriate. This saving includes:


• A review of the individual care packages for over 100 people living independently


• A targeted reduction of high cost care packages • A change to how we purchase day care services


The savings will result in significant change


for our service users. The providers of our commissioned services may change and the way people access our service will change. It will be very important to work closely with individuals and their families to support them through this process and to help them access care packages in a different way. Consultation with service users is already underway in a number of areas and will be critical to our ability to manage the impact of this change with care and sensitivity. This saving will be delivered throughout the three-year period 2015 – 2018.


Learning Disability Day Services: £90,000 A review of our Day Services is included as part of a wider review of learning disability services but we believe there is still scope to make changes to how we deliver our day services in response to Self Directed Support. We currently operate two day care centres – Thornliebank Resource Centre and the Barrhead Centre. We are proposing to provide services from a single day centre hub but will retain our staff in order to shift focus to providing care within the community. We will work with partners in the third sector to develop social enterprises to offer a wider range of training and work opportunities. The provision of flexible, community-based services can greatly improve quality of life for people with less complex care needs. The remaining centre will be able to accommodate those who require more intensive support and significant personal care. There will be extensive engagement with service users and their families to help redesign the new service and we intend to delay taking this saving until 2017/18 to ensure we have the right packages of care in place for all our clients.


Residential respite care: £150,000 The CHCP provides residential respite care for both children and adults through block funded


arrangements with a large third-sector provider called Quarriers. Given the move to Self-Directed Support (SDS), and the reduction in demand for residential respite care, we will continue to work with Quarriers and the individuals and families supported by them to reshape the current service to create more flexible community options as well as retaining an element of residential provision for those who need it most.


Community Warden Service: £125,000 Our warden service responds to a number of calls through the night that would traditionally have been managed by the police. We are proposing to reduce the operational hours of our warden service from 24 hours to 17 hours, resulting in the removal of our nightshift service. This will reduce both the visibility of the service overnight and the security support the service provides for council property, including overnight security for schools. This proposal will not impact on the service provided by the council’s 24 hour CCTV control room, including the 24-hour service provided to support community alarms. The remaining service will respond to any issues occurring through the night on return to duty the following day and we are confident that many incidents, currently supported by the warden service, will be picked up by local police.


Increasing local demands


It is not only a reduction in government grant (general revenue funding) that impacts on the council’s budget. We are also having to manage our budget in relation to increasing local demands, as a result of changing demographics. In short we are having to do more with less. We are seeing a significant increase in


demand for the services we provide to pre-five children in terms of child protection services and the provision of pre-school care. We are home to a growing elderly population, who are living longer and want to remain independent at home, and require a wide variety of support and care. And our reputation as a leading education authority places a high demand on our schools from families, especially those with children who require additional support, who relocate to East Renfrewshire to benefit from our excellent education services. We know through the profiling of our


local area that this demand will continue to increase in the coming years. We are taking steps now to ensure that our services are able to cope, and we can continue to provide the best possible care to everyone who needs it.


Outcome


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8