Anger continues as Westminster City Council cuts hit disabled residents hard

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Anger continues as Westminster City Council cuts hit disabled residents hard

By Westminster Labour ⋅ September 15, 2011 ⋅ Post a comment
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High cuts to local disability services by Westminster City Council have this week received a damning assessment by the independent think tank Demos.

The council is one of the three worst performing in the country, ranking 150 out of 152 care funding councils in England for the very bad way it is coping with the cuts.

Tory councillors have allowed the true cost of the cuts to reach the pockets of vulnerable groups.

Recently, the council raised the eligibility for care, from the lower ‘moderate’ to the higher ’substantial’ and ‘critical’ levels of need, which could leave up to 3,000 local disabled residents without the care and support they need to be involved in our community.

The independent report tells councils how they can stop letting disabled people bear the brunt of the cuts.

The recommendations include involving local disabled people and disability groups in the decision making process and promoting community based support.

Westminster City Council fails on both accounts.

Earlier this week a public meeting was held to protest about the closure of the Westminster Centre for Independent Living which the Tory council is shutting on Friday 30 September 2011.

Despite months of campaigning by local disability organisations, disabled residents, carers and families, Westminster City Council is blazing ahead with the closure.

A spokesperson for one of the local groups campaigning to save the services said that it “is a vital lifeline for many disabled people in the area and taking it away would leave many people isolated and without much-needed support”.

One of the staff who work at the centre added that “the truth is that not only will this be extremely damaging for those people who use the centre, but these kinds of closures end up costing the public purse more because people get sick, and their carers can’t cope. So really it’s a false economy, as so many of these cuts are turning out to be”.

Cllr Paul Dimoldenberg, Leader of the Labour Group on the council, suggested that the Tory council “needs to take stock of the swell of public support for this crucial service in our community and recognise the important contribution that it is making to the lives and independence of over 300 local residents and their families or carers”.

Karen Buck MP added: “When the Coalition came into Government it promised to protect vulnerable groups from the worst of the cuts. For local disabled residents in Westminster today that promise will ring hollow.”

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