48 Jobs Axed After Cornerstone Annouce LD Service Closure

Leading learning disabilities charity Cornerstone Community Care has announced that it is set to close a large part of one of its services in Aberdeen because of a failure by Aberdeen City Council to properly fund the service. The service affected – Cornerstone’s Aberdeen Community Support Service – supports 108 people with learning disabilities and other special needs and employs 48 people.

Cornerstone’s move is the latest in a series of announcements in recent months by Scottish care charities which have been forced to stop providing services because of a failure by local councils to properly fund those services.

Jim Cook, Cornerstone Area Manager for Aberdeen, said “We have been in discussions with Aberdeen City Council for some time about the future of this service.”

“Our Board of Directors has now taken the decision that Cornerstone cannot continue to subsidise this service from within our own very limited resources.  We have now reluctantly written to the council saying that unless agreement on a fair level of funding is reached Cornerstone will have to stop providing a very substantial part of this service.”

“Cornerstone is committed to providing reliable, high quality care and support service for people with learning disabilities and this has been a very difficult decision for us to take. Ultimately, like a number of other care charities which have been in similar positions recently, we had little or no choice – we cannot continue to subsidise from our own very limited resources the difference between what the council pays and what it actually costs to provide a service.”

Mr Cook emphasised that the decision did not affect any other Cornerstone services in Aberdeen – or elsewhere.

He said “One of the reasons we have taken this difficult decision is to ensure that the very substantial losses we have been making on our Aberdeen Community Support Service do not affect our ability to continue to deliver the many other vital services we provide.”

Mr Cook continued “We have written to the people we support telling them of the position. We deeply regret the worry this will cause them but we simply cannot continue to keep making losses providing this service.”

Mr Cook added “This decision clearly has a potential impact on the 48 staff we employ to provide this service and we have now begun the formal process of consulting them about a potential redundancy situation. We will work to minimise the impact on staff affected and will be looking to redeploy people where we can. It is certain though that this will not be possible for many of those affected.”

Mr Cook emphasised that if the council did not reverse its position, Cornerstone would work with it to ensure a smooth transfer to another service provider.