Thousands of Manchester's most vulnerable people will be hit by the worst cuts to social care in a generation, the M.E.N can reveal today.
Sheltered accommodation, meals-on-wheels, support for battered women and other services which provide a lifeline to society's most needy will all be hit after town hall bosses lost millions of pounds worth of funding. The elderly, disabled, mentally ill and the homeless will all be affected.
Glynn Evans, the councillor in charge of adult social care, said: “These are awful, awful cuts – the worst in a eneration. To have to cut services that we've built up over the years and people have benefited from is heartbreaking.”
Full list of services affected by the social care cuts
Councillor Evans talks about the cuts in the video below ...
There will be a reduction in wardens' hours and staff cover at sheltered accommodation.
Supported housing and shelter for the homeless, domestic violence victims, the mentally ill and teenage parents will be reduced with some homes going altogether. There will be less help for those with alcohol and drug problems.
There will also be less 'floating support' – shorter-term assistance available to users when they need it most.
The axe will fall because of a £8.6m cut to the council's Supporting People budget which helps 13,000 people in the city to live independently. It comes after the government cut a ringfenced grant for the service by £12.6m – more than a third - over four years.
Council chiefs, who have put in an extra £4m in a bid to reduce the impact, said ministers were to blame for the cuts.
In addition, there will be a £2m reduction – around 17 per cent - in spending which will hit 59 voluntary and community groups who are paid by the council to provide support, advice and outreach work to thousands of people.
That includes meals-on-wheels and luncheon clubs for the elderly and groups for carers, the mentally ill and people with learning disabilities.
Full list of services affected by the social care cuts
The council said they did not believe any of the voluntary groups would have to close as a result of losing council funding, although some will have money withdrawn altogether.
The savings will be made over two years and the changes – which follow a three-month consultation and equality studies – will be phased in from next month if they are approved by the council's executive when they meet at the end of this month.
No services will be cut completely, but stripped-back provision is expected to drive up waiting lists. Bosses aim to rehouse anyone currently in accommodation that is being scrapped by next April.
The council will place greater emphasis on individual budgets, where residents are given responsibility for how their support is spent. There will also be more assistance provided to users in their own homes, reducing the amount of buildings needed.
People accessing non-residential social care – which includes the very frail elderly and disabled – will also be asked to make a greater contribution to the cost of their care.
Council chiefs announced that cuts to adult social care – the details of which are revealed in town hall reports published today - would be among the worst when it outlined £170m worth of savings in its budget earlier this year.
It followed a settlement from central government which cut overall funding to Manchester by 21 per cent – one of the worst in the county.
That included a total loss of just under £40m from adult services which has also lost around 400 staff.
Coun Evans said: “Our staff have worked so incredibly hard to try and mitigate this. We've been through it line by line and done all we can to try and reduce the impact and protect the most vulnerable, but the money has been cut and our hands are tied.
“Manchester people will look to the local authority to help and support them at a time when they need it and we've always worked to do that.
“These are the most needy, the most vulnerable. Without the intervention we are talking about, they risk deteriorating and actually becoming more expensive on the whole system.
“I wish Cameron and his colleagues would come down and look at what we're having to do. If this is their idea of supporting the most vulnerable in society, they've got it badly wrong.”
A spokesperson for the Department for Communities and Local Government said: "The importance of the Supporting People programme in helping vulnerable people was clearly recognised in the spending review, and in order to limit the number of different funding streams to local authorities, its funding has been included as an element of formula grant based on an average reduction of less than one per cent in each of the next four years.
Nationally, for every pound Supporting People funding provided last year, 99 pence will be provided this year.
"The ring fence on Supporting People was removed in April 2009 - almost two years ago - giving local authorities maximum flexibility and while we recognise the challenges councils are facing, we do expect to see them match our commitment to help the most vulnerable people in society.
"There is no excuse for councils to be targeting any disproportionate spending reductions on programmes that support the most vulnerable people in their communities - local authorities on average will only receive a reduction in their overall spending power of 4.4 per cent this year and we have taken steps to cap the maximum reduction for any individual council at 8.9 per cent to protect those which are very dependent on government grants."
Full list of services affected by the social care cuts
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We must NEVER let the tories gain power ever again.
Cameron & Ugly Osborne must be very proud of themselves.
What about the council chiefs cutting the numbers of themselves? And getting rid of all the politically correct jobs?
I bet there will be still big bashes in the town hall for all the dignitaries!!!
it is the policy of the Conservatives and Liberals, they just dont care. They have never changed and never will. To them Labour voters do not matter. These politicians are all millionares ahd have no concept of poverty, they have lived in gilded cages all of their lives. Alister Campbel had a word for them but MeN would dare not publish it.
I am now a pensioner but with this government, and the weather I would not hesitate to emigrate.
This just proves what a disgrace this Labour council is. They are hurting the people they serve just for political gain. Sell the Etihad stadium to Manchester City for at least £200.000,000 and problem solved.
To be fair there's an awful lot of wastage, certainly room for huge efficiency improvements, so this may help tidy things up a little.
Salford72 - Labour would have continued to spend beyond their means, that's why we're still in such a huge mess. They've wasted billions on useless projects, investigations and quangos, if they hadn't there'd be no need for the cut backs to bring the country back on track.
I am not totally against these cuts if i am honest. Too many people have been taking advantage for too long and it had to stop. But something should not be cut for cutting sake and this is certainly one of them!!!
Maybe if the council hadn't written off so much debt before the recession and people had paid their bills than much of this could have been prevented. I think the salaries for the top council employees are also ridiculous and should have been cut, along with maybe a cut in expenses.
Tameside were cutting back on their services before the recession, just ask the disabled. Unfortunately my late husband is no longer here. He felt the brunt of many of their cuts and it was the finally nail in the coffin - he lost the will to live.
Don't worry the Sun and the Daily Mail have persuaded the rabble that anyone who cannot fend for themselves is worthless
I wonder if the Nuclear Free Zone bureau is still open, what about the 5 portions of fruit a day office and the no chip shop salt department (no sorry that was Stockport). These cuts are politically inspired to create anti coalition feelings. These people are cruel and calculating.
This country is officially broken. When we can't support these people yet we hand out millions & millions per week to immigrants ( who despise our culture ) and there families who are drip fed over here....is sick.
It's the local council that decides priorities, Manchester City Council gives greater priority to having a Nucleur-Free than providing services for the elderly. Personally I don't agree with these priorities but unfortunately people in Manchester have voted for a Labour council.
It's terribly sad but until you vote for a better council, this will continue.
Don't talk wet Bobby Blue!
I and the rest of the country will be voting Labour at the next election.
And the Torags will never get into Government in a million years!
Shame it took a recession to do this. To much money is wasted in this country on projects like this for society's leeches. Cut them more i say.
Anyone with the any knowledge of how Manchester council operates knows that it has been quite a nice a job creation scheme for well paid middle class types for years. They're the ones doing the non-jobs with job titles nobody understands.
Those staff will be OK, yet they are the ones we could easily do without.
Well, somebody is telling lies, clearly - either the Tory central government, or the labour council.....or a bit of both more than likely.
I want to know why Manchester council, considering the situation, continue spending on dross like the Manchester Day back slapping parade. What does this and other events like it actually cost in real terms? I tell you one thing, I am betting that there is 'real terms' cash being spent and only figures on sheets coming back - as in yesterdays MEN story about the £37 million in revenue coming into the city.
How much is spent on Marketing Manchester? There is plenty of money hanging around for these services.
It's ok, we are all in this (mess) together remember?
I cannot see why Manchester council doesn't sell the airport and use the money from that to provide services.
We are most certainly not 'all in this together", are we?
Manchester council boss Sir Howard Bernstein has been named as one of the region’s best paid town hall bosses.
The long-serving chief executive earned £232,000 last year for his council work and other responsibilities.
http://menmedia.co.uk/manchestereveningnews/news/s/1315926_council_chiefs_pay_one_of_highest_in_the_region
All the vunerable people should go out and commit crimes, then when they go to prison they will get proper treatment,full heating 24 hour care, simples
To all the tories on here, I wouldn't gage the popularity of your filthy party using the comments on this forum. There is enough hatred of your lot out there on the streets and in work places up and down this city of ours and throughout the country to make sure that this will be a very short stay in power for your people hating party. The people who comment on here are only a tiny and thankfully unimportant minority. With their daily mail politics and buzz word fearing hypocracies!! laughable, the lot of ya!!
Arthur, the safety haven was spent by Labour.
To those Tories moaning about Labour causing this.. Why is the axe falling on the mentally disabled? Surely your boys are here to make things better, not worse? Why aren't they closing big business tax loopholes?
Its Labour councilors making these cuts, there are other ways to make the cuts without killing the vulnerable, but they dont care. On the brainwashed Road again, Brown sold the Gold, robbed the Pension pot, left the country with nothing, come on Wake up and smell the coffee instead of listening to the Left wing loonies. The sad fact we are upthe creek and God help us all the people in charge dont kNow wat they are doing.
Most of the poeple concerned have got their lives fowled up in one way or another, it may be drugs, booze, cigarettes, crap parents, mistake with the boyfriend but one thing is certain. It is their fault, it is their responsibility to get their lives in order and besides they most probably did not vote so as far as nick clegg and the con dems are concerned these falk do not matter. This in the policy of central government and therefore it has to be reflected in local government.