There is a consultation from Oxfordshire County Council on Daytime Support for vulnerable adults – including the elderly and learning disabled. The County Council want to make a lot of savings by encouraging voluntary groups such as churches to run such services in the future. The consultation can be found here.
This comes a few months after the County Council did something similar to Children’s Centres.
While I appreciate the financial contraints that the CC is having to observe. it comes a bit rich that they want voluntary bodies (like churches) to provide facilities and the like – unless they are prepared to offer some sort of quid pro quo.
About 10 years ago in Reading, the faith communities were consistentlhy sidelined by the Borough Council which wanted to take a secularist stance (no problem with that). The churches, mosques and synagogues then arranged for an independent audit of the ocmmunity services they provided (youth work, clubs for the elderly, the blind, the deaf, lunch clubs etc,, etc.) and which the Council could depend on and not have to provide or budget for. The annual saving to the Council was some £5million. The audit was presented to the Council, which suddenly became much less disobliging.
Voluntary bodies (of varying faiths and of none) save Councils vast sums of money every year, but are frequently frustrated in developing their work by all manner of planning regulations (building, parking and the like) and official prickliness (“I can’t allow that, it’s more than my job’s worth”). Voluntary bodies are glad to help, but it would ease the wheels were the relevant Councils (both elected represenattives and paid officers) to show a little public gratitude from time to time.
Rant over!
As Scrooge might have said,’Are the Poor Laws not in operation?Are there no prisons?Are there no workhouses?’The Wellbeing Centre is a fine building.Is it to go the same way as The Abbey Hall?