Cllr Harry Phibbs writes
I'm generally uneasy about charities devoting their resources to politics but there is some merit in a project from Scope analysing the impact of Council spending cuts on services for the disabled. The think tank Demos undertook the project of mapping the cuts. You can look up each council and see whether the spending cuts in the area are relatively high or low. But also how well they have "coped" with the cuts. This measure judges each council purely by the service being delivered on the front line.
I am pleased to see that Hammersmith and Fulham Council was judged to perform "well" in maintaining services despite being "high" in terms of the money.
There is still some criticism which I feel is unfair. Our home care charge to service users will have gone up, as fees and charges go up every year in line with inflation, but this is a means tested charge and only about 100 people are actually liable to pay all their charges and most pay no charge at all. Because the charge cannot be more than the cost to us of the service and we have negotiated low prices with our providers, the charge to service users compares favourably with the charges in other boroughs.
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