In the wake of the plans we previous posted where Cambridgeshire County Council propose, among other things to scrap school crossing patrols and mobile libraries across the county here’s some more proposals they’re suggesting as part of their battle to reduce their outgoings in the face of the government’s austerity programme.

This time it’s Children, Families and Adult Services. You can find the full version here but the headline bullet points are as follows (we’ve not highlighted anything this time but you’ll see if you read it that many people in our community, especially the elderly and vulnerable, will be badly affected):

In Children, Families and Adults, this means:

• Considerable reductions to services for children, families and adults in Cambridgeshire will be necessary over the next five years
• Across the county, a smaller proportion of vulnerable people will have the cost of their care met by the Council and overall we will reduce the amount we spend on those in receipt of services
• We will ask communities and families to do more to support vulnerable people in Cambridgeshire
• We will increase the focus on improving long term planning for those in receipt of high cost care to maximise their independence and support from their families and/or communities, and to minimise the need for formal support provision over their lifetime. We will also reduce the cost of the specialist support people receive
• This will involve very difficult decisions in terms of where budget reductions will fall. Some people who currently receive our support will not continue to do so. In some cases, we will reduce support for people who use our services regardless of whether or not they can achieve greater independence.
• At the same time, we will strengthen the impact of the preventative work we do with people, working with them to prevent need and to prevent an escalation of need for our high cost services. We will use our remaining and reducing resources differently and our preventative activity will have a very different focus to now.
• We recognise that problems cannot always be solved quickly and some people will require ongoing support over the course of their lifetime. Where people need our most specialist and intensive services, we will support them. We will strive to make sure that the support provided improves both the quality of their life and is cost effective.

Children, Families and Adults need to make savings of £26.5m next year. Their proposals include:

• Reducing care support for vulnerable adults and older people (including those with mental health needs) – £9.3m
• Removing subsidies for educational transport for over-16s and other proposals – £770,000
• Removing the Council’s funding for speech and language therapy for young children – £120,000
• Further reducing funding for Children’s Centres over the next two years with a £250,000 reduction next year.
• Reducing the total of children and young people becoming ‘looked after’ and the cost of their care – £1.43m
• Increase the income from older people’s contributions to their care budgets – £500,000
• Re-tendering the housing support services for older people in extra care accommodation – £457,000
• Reduce services provided by the Council for adults with learning disabilities, and potentially use independent sector provision instead – £500,000
• Reduce advice and support that is available to early years settings and schools to statutory minimum – £500,000
• Absorb staff pay increases and increases in pension payments (incurred as a result of national policy changes) within individual service budgets – £2.9m
• Reduce spend on agency social work staff – £502,000
• Reduce staffing in informatics, strategy development and project management support, practice development and innovation – £546,000
• Reductions in early help services for children and young people as previously agreed – £1.02m