Council leads smarter savings league

A think tank has named Hammersmith & Fulham (H&F) Council as leading the way nationally at protecting disabled residents from the impact of cuts to social care budgets.

Funded by disability charity Scope, Demos has researched how 174 councils in England and Wales have reacted to the national budget crisis when it comes to delivering services to disabled residents.

They say; "Many councils who introduced the same degree of budget cut scored vastly differently on the coping scale; demonstrating that councils have the ability to introduce measures that can reduce the negative impact on their disabled residents."

The research compares councils by matching the size of budget reductions with changes in charges, eligibility criteria and contributions policies and highlights H&F as a council doing more than most to reduce spending without damaging services to disabled people.

Cllr Joe Carlebach, cabinet member for community care said:

“We are very pleased that Scope has endorsed the work that we are doing to protect disabled residents from the impact of budget cuts.

“We have 27 per cent less to spend over the next three years, but we have worked hard to ensure that our charges and eligibility criteria are better than most other local authorities in London and even compared to local authorities nation wide.

“To date our savings on services to disabled people have been achieved through hard work identifying and delivering efficiencies.

"We are getting rid of unnecessary overheads, cutting back office and management costs and combining many of our services with Westminster City Council and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea as well identifying and acting on savings with our colleagues in the NHS.

“We are living through particularly difficult economic times and the need to cut the nation’s spiralling debt mountain means that all parts of government, including local authorities have had to make many tough choices.

"We have decided that it is a priority despite the current difficult climate to protect front line services where we can.”