Parents may take council to court over service cuts

As the Courier and Weekly News went to press last week, Warwickshire County Council was set to discuss the cutting its £8.8m Integrated Disability Service budget by £1.7m from next April, meaning every family who benefits from help with carers, care respite and individual budgets will be re-assessed against stricter criteria.

Hundreds of families will go without help packages like short breaks and access to support workers.

Parents group Family Voice Warwickshire has slammed the recent public consultation and the proposals and said it would have no choice but to bring a judicial review, claiming the council would not be fulfilling its statutory care obligations.

Chair Ruth Walwyn, who lives in Leamington, said she feels the parents have not been listened to during the whole process.

“Frankly we have been appalled by the level of incompetence,” she added.

“On May 1, we told them that the consultation document was seriously flawed and to use it would be reckless and would result in us taking legal action. It was withdrawn the next day and a completely different consultation document appeared. Again we have serious concerns about it but very few were listened to.

“The consultation came to an end, the reports have been written. The papers sent to cabinet contain various quotes from parents but these have been cherry picked.

“We hope that our clear threat to take legal action should they choose to adopt the proposals will give them pause for thought.

“Unfortunately even if these proposals are not adopted our services are in a shambolic state with staff on sick leave, taking redundancy, demoralised because of threats to their jobs and the services they have built up, leaving -or being marched out of their office!”

A Warwickshire County Council spokesman said: “Officers prepared a statement for the consideration of cabinet.

“We cannot prejudice the meeting by commenting before members have had a chance to consider and debate the report.

“Equality impact assessments were carried out as part of the process when the proposals contained in the report were considered and full legal due diligence was followed.”

The county council’s cabinetwas due to discuss the proposals yesterday (Thursday) at Shire Hall in Warwick.

Check leamingtoncourier.co.uk for updates and see next week’s Courier and Weekly News for reaction from the families.