The annual undeliverable alternative budget

Cambridgeshire Lib Dems published their alternative budget yesterday.  It was, as ever, an attempt to be all things to all people.  It takes money from the Northstowe development - which it also vaguely claims the Lib Dems support, and then does the usual thing of trying to deliver all things to all people.  Yet, it doesn't.  Interestingly I have real doubts about whether whether the Lib Dems are able to do what they want to do - and more importantly, I suspect there would be a huge legal challenge from developers if they did.


In terms of my Cabinet portrfolio, there are just two references to the Adult Services budget that I can find.  The first is this quote


"We would implement a plan to responsibly manage Adult Care, instead of helter skelter budgeting that has demoralised staff and service-users alike and resulted in a 25% to cut in care levels mid-year."


Yet - they make no mention of what that plan is or how they would cost it - and offer no new money to the overall budget.  It ignores the vision that myself and Officers have been discussing over recent months - often quite publicly, including on radio interviews and elsewhere and simply makes a statement that is, at best, a stretch of reality.  The 25% cut they mention, was planned well in advance, but much of it was implemented mid-year so we could ensure it was properly planned and managed so that it minimised impact - which is why, to date, we have had little complaint about it.  And it was for only part of the Adult Services budget.  The statement about staff morale is fatuous rubbish.  I have been astonished by how well staff in Adult Services have reacted to the challenge that has been put to them about delivering change.


Adult Services faces big problems, such as a forecast 37% increase in the number of over 65s in the County over the next ten years.  Of course, that is a good thing because it comes about largely because people are living longer, but it creates big pressures on our future budget.  This statement from the Lib Dems is irresponsible because it is not coupled with any sort of articulation of how they would solve the issues.  In contrast, I have been clear at scrutiny meetings and elsewhere that we have to change - to be more integrated, do prevention better to stop people needing our services and to transform the way we work.


The second statement is this (which is contained in a section called communities and the elderly):

"Line 50 enabling better dementia care (£830 thousand over 5 years)

At present the Lead Mental Health GP's current business case for training dementia care staff in homes cannot get passed because there is no ring-fenced budget for training. This means that essential training cannot get done despite the CCC's supposed commitment to our dementia review and to the mental health strategy paper, where training was emphasised.  If you have trained personnel rather than untrained you are likely to get better clinical and therefore cost outcomes."

The first point on this is to highlight that the Lib Dems are so desperate for credibility that they have claimed that a dementia report from one of the County Council's independent, all-party scrutiny committees as theirs (they didn't like me raising this at scrutiny today!!).   One of the people that has been most committed to mental health issues is one of our Labour Councillors, he deserves credit for his commitment and challenge in this area is due an apology.  Secondly, we have absolutely endorsed the recommendations in both the scrutiny report and the NHS paper.  Indeed at the Cabinet meeting where we provided that support, I made the point that it was improved knowledge and training for dementia across the board that was needed and not just amongst one section of people.  So their statement is much more limited in ambition than what we have already endorsed.  Thirdly, whilst dementia is more prevalent amongst older people, it is certainly not just an older people's illness, the fact that they have clearly labelled it as such is yet another indicator of their total lack of understanding of the adult services arena (probably because they sacked the Lib Dem with the most knowledge of Health issues from their front bench).

No doubt the Lib Dems will criticise the Adult Services budget and claim we won't deliver it - when they do they need to explain why it is that they have not offered any alternative or additional funding when they have chosen to spray unavailable money like confetti around almost every other area of council spend.


The Adult Services budget is about 40% of the Councils total spend - this year's budget is about £157m.  In the past it has proven very difficult to balance - which is one of the reasons we are focusing on transormation.  The Lib Dems have made just two references to it in their proposals; one is a generic catch-all statement that lacks detail, vision or credibility, and the other lacks the ambition of the Conservatives and shows severe shortcomings in their knowledge of the Adult Services function.