Coventry council to cut 140 jobs and close care home

Coventry City Council has unveiled plans to save £22m, including closing homes for people coming out of hospital and cutting about 140 care jobs.
The authority needs to save £8m in 2014-15 and £15m for 2015-16.

Other plans include withdrawing funding to outside care organisations and centralising services for adults with learning disabilities.

Alison Gingell from the council said: “Our top priority is to protect the most vulnerable.”

She admitted most of the 140 care jobs would be frontline staff, but some managers will also lose their jobs.

“It’s regrettable and not what we’d choose,” said Ms Gingell, cabinet member for health and adult services.

The Labour-led authority is planning to decommission either Jack Ball House in Henley Green or George Rowley House in Canley, the two remaining bedsit accommodation facilities in Coventry.

About 23 people stay in each house, many of them long-term tenants.

Eric Williams House in Whoberley, the only remaining council-run residential home focussing on dementia care, is to stay open.

About 800 jobs at the council have already been cut over the past two years and another 800 are at risk over the next two years.

A three-month public consultation on the latest round of cuts will run from September to November.