Aberdeenshire Council Rejects Charity’s Allegation

THE director of a north-east charity has accused Aberdeenshire Council of misspending public funds, but the council has rejected the allegation.

The Press and Journal has obtained a letter written by Grampian Society for the Blind’s (GSB) chief executive Graham Findlay to the local authority, which he accused of committing a “significant breach” of its duty to ensure the “proper, efficient and effective use of public funds”.

Until April 2007, GSB provided statutory services in Aberdeenshire, which included social work, mobility and rehabilitation services.

But the council decided to renegotiate the contract on grounds of “best value”, and asked GSB to provide a quote for the continued service.

According to the letter, the charity offered to carry out the statutory services for 2007 to 2008 for £208,000, but the council offered a final amount of £175,000, which GSB could not meet.

GSB then waited a year to submit a freedom of information request to see how much the services, now in-house, cost the council. In a letter to the council’s chief executive, Alan Campbell, Mr Findlay stated: “We were astonished to find that the full cost to Aberdeenshire Council of running the services in-house came to £304,469 for year 2007 to 2008.

“Not only are the council spending significantly more than they offered GSB, and much more than they ever funded GSB in the past, they have also managed to fragment statutory and non-statutory services for some of the most vulnerable people within the society.”

Mr Findlay added: “We have to let the complaints process run its course.”

But in a reply letter, Mr Campbell challenged the figures included in GSB’s comparison, saying the total cost to the council to provide the in-house services is £211,846, after several services were included which “should not have been”. He added: “Applying these points to the costs included in your letter would produce a revised GSB figure of £213,364.”
integrated

Mr Campbell also said there is “no evidence” of “damage to integrated services for visually-impaired clients”, as Mr Findlay alleged.

He added: “I would have thought that the opposite is the case, in that clients now have more direct access to all the services provided by the council in a much more integrated way than formerly.

“Nor is there any evidence to suggest that Aberdeenshire Council has ‘managed to fragment statutory and non-statutory services for some of the most vulnerable people within society’. There is no evidence to support this allegation and its emotive language might unduly alarm the reader.”

Mr Campbell said that “services involved are now being provided at a lower cost and to a higher standard than before”, along with some examples, which included the fact that equipment is now provided free of charge.