No U-Turn On Fife Home Care Charges

A NORTH east Fife councillor at the centre of the row over increased home care charges has defended the policy amid calls for it to be scrapped in the wake of the Glenrothes by-election result.

Liberal Democrat Tim Brett, chair of Fife Council’s social work and health committee, insisted this week that the SNP/Lib Dem administration remains committed to charging for home care services for those who can afford to pay.

That’s despite the claim by protesters that the issue played a key role in Labour resisting the SNP challenge to retain the Glenrothes seat.

The Campaign Against Charges has called for a u-turn on the controversial charges, which the group says have caused ‘misery’ to disabled Fifers.

Last week’s Fife Herald and St Andrews Citizen highlighted the plight of local man Dawson Murray, who faces an increase in his care costs of over 1300 per cent — the highest in Fife so far.

But Councillor Brett, who represents Taybridgehead, said Mr Murray was one of only 10 out of the 2000 people assessed so far who would have to contribute more to their cost of care.

He said: “We believe it is correct to concentrate care on those who need it most and that people who can afford to pay should be asked to do so.

“I’m very confident that we took the right decision to review our charges.

“The additional income raised by the increased charges will be invested straight away into further frontline services for those vulnerable residents in Fife who so desperately need our home care services.”

Councillor Brett said that the previous Labour administration had itself planned to increase care charges in line with other Scottish local authorities.

Meanwhile, Katie Spencer-Nairn, who’s also from north east Fife and is a leading member of the Campaign Against Charges, said that the Labour by-election victory had shown that ‘commonsense and decency had prevailed over arrogance and lack of compassion’.

She said: “I just hope the administration will listen and learn from what has happened in the by-election and from the people of Fife and will work now to sort out the issue of home care and other charges.”