A FLAWED consultation by Bradford Council has led to major changes in how the authority will communicate with vulnerable people in future.
People’s views on proposed changes will now be given much more careful consideration after the Council admitted it “messed” up a consultation into a shake-up in adult care funding.
In 2016 the Council proposed controversial changes to how disabled adults contributed financially to their social care.
It would bring in a standard charging system used by many other local authorities as part of ways to cut costs in its adult social care department.
The changes, which the Council said were needed due to budget cuts, would see some people have to pay for non-residential services they had previously received for free. But during a consultation process into the changes, numerous families raised concerns about how difficult to understand the proposed changes were. Although the new system was eventually introduced, the Council had been threatened with a Judicial Review over how it handled the consultation.
It led to a review of how the Council carries out similar consultations, especially with vulnerable people. At a meeting of the Council’s Health and Social Care Scrutiny Committee on Thursday, members were presented with a report into the review, which said “lessons had been learned.”
Daryl Smith, policy officer, told members: “In my view in 2016 we asked the wrong questions. The budget decision had already been made, but we were asking ‘we’re thinking of doing this, what do you think? We should have been telling people ‘we’re doing this, we now want to work with you to see how we can mitigate it. We messed up.”
Phil Witcherley, head of policy and performance at the Council, told the meeting: “Processes are in place to make sure something like that never happens again. It is a big piece of work, and we are trying to make sure that people’s voices are being heard.”
Changes proposed include making sure the Council holds consultations when proposals are still at an early stage and providing adequate time for people to consider changes and give their response.
Mr Witcherley said with decisions on next year’s Council budget due to be made in the coming months, decision-makers would be reminded of the changes, and the importance of communicating how budget cuts would affect different groups across the district.
Susan Crowe, who sits on the committee as a representative of the Strategic Disability Partnership, said: “That case was a really emotive issue that meant some disabled people would lose funding. I remember an open meeting on the consultation that got very emotional. There were a lot of tears in that room. I don’t think anyone at the Council did this deliberately, it was not a mistake that rose from malice, I just think officers didn’t realise how emotive the issue was. I think the Council has learned a lesson, and I can’t see something like this happening again.”
A report to the committee said: “Over the last two years, the Health and Wellbeing department’s been built around taking a person centred approach in its dialogue with the people it supports. This means focusing on people’s strengths, and enabling people to take properly understood, proportionate and positive risks in living their lives.”
This article originally appeared on Telegraph & Argus
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