What this consultation is about
We're facing budget pressures like never before and need to save £157m by 2018.
Reductions in Government grants, inflation and greater demands on our budget for adult social care and vulnerable children mean we must re-think the way we deliver services.
It means some services will remain, some will be run differently and some services will have to stop. We don’t want to cut any services but we have no choice.
We’ve drawn up plans for how we think we can save money and this includes making changes to the funding of some of our housing-related support services. In January we revealed plans to make cuts to a number of adult social care services.
One of the proposals was to cut the money we spend on housing-related support by £9m over two years, in two phases.
Following consultation, phase one of the changes to housing-related support services has now been agreed, with £2.4m being cut from services.
Extensive discussions with providers of services during the phase one consultation, extra money from business rates and our public health budget has led to some services that could have been cut straight away being able to operate for longer, in one case up to 18 months longer.
We're now considering new proposals as part of phase two of the housing-related support cuts.
Changes made by providers to some services, re-negotiations of contracts and money from public health and business rates will be used to offset some of the cuts where possible, and it is anticipated that phase two will result in savings of just over £6m.
We want to hear your views about the proposed changes to housing-related support services and want to make it as easy as possible for you to take part. We have included the reference to the relevant section in the Cabinet report which is attached to this page.
For each questionnaire relating to a different service there are specific 'have your say' pages:
People who are potentially affected by the changes will be contacted personally via a letter, which will be sent out in the new year, informing them of the specific proposals that affect them. The letter will invite them to take part in the consultation either using a postal or online questionnaire, in writing, by email or by telephone or by attending a consultation workshop that will be arranged in partnership with the providers. These details will all be available on the separate pages of the website.
The consultation is now closed. Results are now available.