Feedback – Cutting Our Cloth Debate

Feedback – Cutting Our Cloth Debate
Thank you for your feedback on the Cutting Our Cloth debate. The feedback received has
been really useful as a snapshot of how residents think our proposals will affect
communities and what can be done to lessen the impact of these cuts.
Some residents have raised concerns and requested further information or clarification on
some issues.
In this Question and Answer feature, we are providing further information which we hope
will clarify these matters. The subjects explained are:
 Review of care homes in Denbighshire
 School uniform grant
 Payments for children with disabilities
A full list of responses to the debate will appear on the website in early December and a
summary of the feedback will be sent to participants.
Again, thank you for taking the time to get involved in the Cutting Our Cloth debate.
Issue
Further information
Review of care homes in
Denbighshire
The Council funds over 500 older people to
live in care homes across Denbighshire, with
just 54 - or 10% - of those living in the three
care homes (Awelon, Ruthin, Dolwen in
Denbigh and Cysgod y Gaer in Corwen).
A number of people have requested
further information and have also raised
concerns on the review of care homes
in the county.
Older people frequently tell us that they want
to live in their own homes as they get older,
not move into residential care, so we want to
explore how we can develop alternatives to
this such as Extra Care Housing Schemes.
The provision of 'standard' residential care
(i.e. not nursing care or specialist elderly
mental health care), which is what local
authority owned homes can only provide, is
rapidly reducing in demand as alternatives
such as Extra Care Housing Schemes are
being developed in partnership with other
Housing Associations/ housing providers in
key communities across the County. Part of
the consultation would be about what they
think about the council supporting the
development of more of this type of provision
as an alternative to the three council owned
residential care homes, which are a
significantly more expensive to run than
equivalent services provided by the third and
independent sectors.
In relation to the 54 individuals living in
Awelon, Dolwen and Cysgod y Gaer, many of
them are likely to need to move into
alternative settings as their needs increase
and they develop needs for nursing or
specialist elderly mental health care.
The Council has given a commitment to
ensure that they will not close any council
owned care home if there are individuals
living there whose needs can not be met in
alternative provision.
We recognise that any change can be
upsetting for those involved and that is why
we are considering starting a consultation
during which, we will meet with residents and
their relatives or representatives to explain
how services could be provided and to gather
their views on any changes. Part of any
consultation will include an impact
assessment for those affected.
We would like to reassure service users and
their families that when a consultation is
agreed by members, we will work with them
and support them throughout the process.
The consultation would include people living
within the three Extra Care Housing Schemes
(Gorwel Newydd, Rhyl, Nant y Mor, Prestatyn
and Llys Awelon, Ruthin) where domiciliary
care services are provided by the council.
These housing schemes for older people are
owned by Housing Associations, not the local
authority, and so the consultation would
purely be about the provision of care services
within these housing schemes. Arrangements
for housing support or any other services in
the building will not be affected so will not be
included as part of this consultation.
School Uniform Grants
Concerns have been raised on the
school uniform grant proposal.
It will also look at the day care provision at
Hafan Deg in Rhyl, which currently has ten
service users and ten members of staff.
Currently the Council receives a grant from
Welsh Government to fund school uniforms
for Year 7 pupils who are entitled to free
school meals.
The grant for Year 7 will remain for the period
that the Welsh Government continue to
provide funding and we are going to target all
parents to claim the grant to maximise take
up. The take up of this grant has been below
100%. so the Council will be targeting all
parents whose children qualify, to ensure they
apply for this entitlement.
The Council also then chooses, as a local
authority, to provide a discretionary school
uniform grant for free school meals pupils in
Years 8-11 which is funded by Education.
The savings proposal put forward by
Education (of £4,000) refers only to Years 811 where it is proposed we will no longer pay
for the uniform in those years. Schools do
however have the discretion to pay for this for
parents, provided they include it in their
charging policy so there is a safety net in
place.
The Council wants to make it absolutely clear
that it does not expect children who cannot
afford school uniform to go without.
Children with disabilities
We have received a number of comments
regarding our proposals to introduce a
parental contributions policy for services for
children with disabilities. People are
concerned this would target a low income and
vulnerable group within society and we feel
we need to clarify what these proposals
actually mean.
Far from reducing opportunities for children
with disabilities, we are looking to make more
opportunities widely available to them. We are
continually working towards developing
communities which are sensitive and inclusive
to the needs of children with disabilities so
they can enjoy and participate in a wide range
of activities without needing to be assessed.
We are currently developing programme to
improve accessibility across the County.
We feel it is reasonable that families should
take responsibility for transporting their
children to respite and/or activities. Should the
child's needs require transport, families in
these circumstances have access to Disability
Living Allowance benefits, which include a
transport cost element so in effect, we are
removing duplicate funding that is already
being provided.
In addition we propose to introduce a parental
contribution of £25 per week towards the cost
of respite and relief services for those families
that are working. This would exclude families
on benefits. It must be noted that the
contributions proposed represent a very small
proportion of the overall service cost to the
Council so a fee of £25 is extremely low.
Clearly we will be discussing the impact on
individual families as part of the
implementation and there is no suggestion
that we would see these families struggle to
care for their children.