DESPITE PROTEST CUTS TO VOLUNTARY AND COMMUNITY ORGANISATIONS GO AHEAD

The Council relies on the voluntary and community sector to provide many essential health and social care services. Local organisations work with vulnerable adults and carers from all sections of the community, both those who receive services from the Council and, in particular, those who are not eligible but who need support to prevent problems developing and to improve the quality of their lives.

These services range from help with welfare benefits to employment training, day centre activities to befriending, support for people to speak for themselves to carers’ breaks.

Despite the protests, the proposal to cut £736,000 was passed at the full Council meeting on 28th February.  Although the Council’s response to concerns about the impact of the cuts was to say that the ‘proposed reductions are focussed on a small number of individual organisations’, this is been shown not to be the case - 28 organisations, including several specialist organisations and several from the black and minority ethnic community, and 46 different services have been cut:
· 12 services have been totally cut and will be closed down
· 15 services have been cut by between 20-50%
· 10 services have been cut by 10% and will have to be reduced
· 9 services have been given no inflation (a real cut of 3%) and will struggle to maintain the services they provide

What Will This Mean?

Vulnerable adults who cannot get help from the Council will have fewer preventative services to use in the community.  The right support from one of these services at the right time can save large costs if someone has to go into hospital or institutional care later because they could not get help when it was needed.

Voluntary & community organisations provide high quality, good value services which are a lifeline to our vulnerable citizens. We need more investment in preventative services to support the growing number of people who need them.

We ask the council to reverse these damaging cuts before its too late and find other ways of making savings which do not damage front-line services.

These are the organisations/services affected and their level of cut:

Services to all client groups:

• Disability Advice Service Lambeth (direct payments - No inflation
• Lambeth & Southwark Community Transport (community car scheme) - Total cut

Carers services:

• Age Concern Lambeth (befriending) - 20% cut
• Jamyang Buddhist Centre - Total cut
• Lambeth Carers (information & advocacy) - No inflation
• Lambeth Carers (fix-yourself-a-break) - Total cut
• Lambeth Carers (carers week) - Total cut
• Lambeth Carers (involvement work) - Total cut
• Lambeth Chinese Community (counselling) - Total cut
• Lambeth Chinese Community Centre - 20% cut
• Lambeth Crossroads - 10% cut
• Waterloo Action Centre - Total cut

Learning disability services:

• Camden Society - Total cut
• Lambeth Mencap (carers breaks) - No inflation
• Lambeth Mencap (leisure & recreation) - 35% cut
• Lambeth Mencap (carers worker) - 15% cut
• Pathway Employment - 15% cut
• People First Lambeth (self advocacy & user involvement) - 10% cut
• Windmill Gateway Club - No inflation

Mental health services:

• Blackfriars Work Centre - 10% cut
• Fanon Day Centre - 10% cut
• Mosaic Clubhouse - 10% cut
• Vietnamese Mental Health Services - 10% cut
• Rethink - Total cut

Older people’s day services:

• Guernsey Grove Community Project - 20% cut
• Lambeth Asian Centre - 20% cut
• Lambeth Chinese Community Association - 20% cut
• Lambeth Elderly Association from Vietnam - 20% cut
• Lambeth Senior Citizens Day Centre - 20% cut
• Latin American Golden Years Club - 20% cut
• Streatham Darby & Joan - 20% cut
• Waterloo Action Centre - 50% cut

Older people’s other services:

• Age Concern Lambeth (handyperson) - No inflation
• Age Concern Lambeth (information & advice) - 10% cut
• Age Concern Lambeth (welfare benefits) - 10% cut
• Age Concern Lambeth (user involvement) - 10% cut
• Age Concern Lambeth (open house) - 20% cut
• Age Concern Lambeth (support & capacity building) - 45% cut
• Lambeth Alzheimer’s Society - No inflation

Services to people with physical and sensory disability/long-term health conditions:

• Age Concern Lambeth (handyperson)  - Total cut
• Disability Advice Service Lambeth (information & advice) - No inflation
• Disability Advice Service Lambeth (user involvement) - 10% cut
• Organisation of Blind African Caribbeans  - Total cut
• Royal Association for Deaf People - No inflation
• Lambeth Sickle Cell Society  - Total cut