Carers hit the end of the road
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THE END of the road has arrived for the North West Sutherland Care Alliance (NWSCA) which closes down on Monday.
The group has provided flexible respite care and home support to elderly and vulnerable adults and children in North and North West Sutherland on behalf of Highland Council and NHS Highland over the past 12 years.
But NWSCA managers took the decision to disband after failing to reach an agreement with social work managers over a renewal of their three-year contract, which runs out at the end of this month.
At issue was the reduced level of funding NWSCA managers claimed they were being offered by the council. They said they were facing a cut of around 58 per cent which was simply too severe to allow them to continue operating.
A proposal from the authority to provide more funding if NWSCA would take on the council’s in-house, care-at-home services, was also judged not viable.
The issue sparked a campaign locally, spearheaded by Kevin Crowe, chairman of Durness Community Council. A 700-signature petition, handed over to Councillor Margaret Davidson, chair of the Housing and Social Work Committee, called on the council to provide more funding.
However the plea fell on deaf ears and instead the authority is now understood to be working with Crossroads Care to pick up where NWSCA left off.
NWSCA’s co-ordinator, Sylvia Mackay, revealed earlier this week that she and her team of eight carers, who were all issued with redundancy notices, are now transferring to Crossroads.
She said Crossroads was also taking over NWSCA’s office headquarters at Kinlochbervie Harbour and would be retaining the same telephone number.
But she warned local people not to expect the same level of service as previously provided by NWSCA
"It’s a positive step that Crossroads are going to be there – that’s much better than us just closing and nothing being put in our place," she said.
"But, unless they manage to raise extra funding, I would say there is going to be quite a big reduction in service but we won’t know until they take over.
Asked why, if Crossroads could manage the service on reduced funding, the NWSCA was unable to do so, Mrs Mackay responded: "Crossroads is a much bigger organisation and, if things don’t work out financially for them in this area, they are much more sustainable.
"But, as a small, independent organisation, there is just no way we could have done it with the funding the council was proposing.
"Crossroads, as far as we are aware, still don’t know exactly what they are signing up to but they have stepped in rather than seeing the service close."
Meanwhile, council representatives continue to insist that there was no reduction in funding.
In a letter to Mr Crowe, Margaret Davidson states: "The discussions with North West Sutherland Care Alliance do not involve any savings – this has not been a cuts exercise.
"There is a redistribution of budgets for home based respite, but this funding will be distributed on an equal basis across the authority in future, including to other rural areas. There is no reduction in this budget."
She added that the NWSCA had been offered a 350% increase in their budget to take on extra services such as care at home, support work and telecare or out-of-hours responses.
"We believe this could have ensured the sustainability of the NWSCA, also reducing the comparative burden of overheads and enabled flexibility in the deployment of local services for different purposes," she said.
Mrs Davidson concluded: "I do very much regret the decision that NWSCA has made, but having asked them to reconsider, and having that decision confirmed, we must now move on, to ensure that we can indeed provide assessed levels of personal care for people in your communities."
Commenting on the issue, Mr Crowe, who lodged a Freedom of Information request with the council demanding to see all the paperwork concerning the negotiations between the council and the NWSCA, said: "Throughout this appalling series of events, two things are clear."Firstly, local authority officials have not been keeping the elected members fully informed – it is not acceptable that elected members only find out what their own officers are doing when they hear it at community council meetings."Secondly, officials have been publicly claiming that there will be no service cuts, whilst enforcing heavy cuts on service providers."
