Letter: Social Care At Breaking Point Says Surrey Disability Charity

Published on: 29 Jan, 2017
Updated on: 29 Jan, 2017

From Surrey Disabled People’s Partnership

Surrey County Council has confirmed it plans to conduct a referendum of Surrey residents in May to ask if residents agree in a 15% rise in council tax.

Surrey Disabled People’s Partnership welcomes the referendum and hopes it will open up discussions around the current state of crisis within social care.

Surrey County Council have confirmed they are proposing the increase due to mounting pressures on its social care budget and recognises action needs to be taken.

We believe social care is at breaking point and if action is not taken now we will see many vulnerable people in our community put at risk.

Surrey Disabled People’s Partnership and the important services we provide to disabled adults and carers living in Surrey, has already been greatly affected by the recent unprecedented financial challenges faced by Surrey County Council. We have lost funding for two of our hugely popular services, GetWise, a welfare benefit advice service and Surrey Hubs, an accessible information service.

It is vital that residents recognise that frontline services provided by the voluntary sector and funded by the local authority are preventative. Many of these services help to prevent vulnerable people getting into crisis, which in the long term will be far more costly to resolve.

We are not saying the 15% council tax increase is the long-term solution, in fact we believe it is just a sticking plaster. Surrey Disabled People Partnership strongly believes central government needs to look at the current crisis in social care and its funding or lack of.

Up to now, we strongly believe that central government has buried its head in the sand by not acknowledging that social care is in crisis. This must change.

Surrey Disabled People’s Partnership is a charity which works to enable and empower people to achieve equality. Its vision is to champion freedom, choice and independence for everyone. It does this by offering a number of vital services to disabled people, carers and older people living in Surrey. It is based in Woking.