Croydon Council to make care services private company

Croydon Council is creating a private company to run its adult social care and housing services.

There are plans to form a local authority trading company (LATC) allowing the council to sell the services to other authorities.

The company will include the council’s award winning dementia care service, which has been highlighted as a shining example of good practice by the Department of Health.

Croydon North MP Malcolm Wicks said: “This is going to make the Thatcher period look like a golden age.

“The idea of privatising adult social care scares the life out of me, in terms of vulnerability and the crucial needs of those people. This has to be a public service with proper scrutiny from the council.”

Councils have the power to create LATCs under the Local Government Act 2003 and Croydon Council would own 100 per cent of the shares in any new company.

Profits would be put back into the council’s budgets or re-invested in the development of services provided by the company.

Councillor Margaret Mead, the council’s cabinet member for adult services, said: “The same services will be delivered by the same people in the same places. The main difference is that for the first time more people will be able to access them.

“We could also potentially market the services to other local authorities, making profits that can be put back into other services.”