North care staff cuts on the cards

Highland Council is considering a reduction in the number of staff caring for the region’s increasing number of vulnerable people, as part of emergency measures to balance its social work budget.

The service is facing a £3.4million projected overspend this financial year.

Accountants have already swung into action to tackle the crisis, but it may be September before the action plan is published.

A package of measures to redress the situation includes a review of care-home staffing levels and an option not to fill existing social work job vacancies.

Housing and social work chairwoman Margaret Davidson said she was confident efficiencies were achievable, but neither she nor social work director Harriet Dempster could offer any guarantees. Pointing to the root of the department’s miscalculations, Ms Dempster told housing and social work committee members, meeting in Inverness, that its share of a compulsory, council-wide re-evaluation of staff contracts was over £1million.

She said ineffective rotas had added to the “pressures,” delayed discharges from care homes had proved costly and the council had overspent in its own care homes, partly due to a high absence rate among night-shift staff.

Mrs Davidson said: “We’re always hoping we can manage more people within the same budget and over the next few years that is how it is going to be because we’ve been told we’re going to be getting flat (Scottish Government) settlements.

“So, we have got to get sharper at delivering. We’ve got to get our staff absence rates down. We’ve got to be very clear that whenever we make an appointment it’s essential. But, at the same time, we’ve got to deliver services to the most vulnerable people in the Highlands. There are some issues for the council to deal with around job evaluation and whether we get extra money for that.”

She added: “We’ve got to grapple with how we’re going to deal with increasing need when public budgets are going to be cut over the next few years. These answers are not going to be easy.”

Nairn SNP councillor Liz MacDonald warned of “vast ramifications” for the service that demanded “severe actions from management” to balance the budget.

Acknowledging colleagues’ “grave concerns,” Fort William and Ardnamurchan councillor Donald Cameron, was, however, encouraged that “the problems have been identified and mechanisms are in place to redress the balance”. A “budget recovery plan” to address the current £3.4million overspend will be presented to the committee’s September meeting.