We should have done much more – East Lothian social care

EAST Lothian Council officials have admitted they failed to do enough to inform the public about controversial plans to put some support services out to competitive tender.

Care workers and service users across East Lothian collected 427 signatures in protest at the local authority’s Homecare Procurement Project, which will see services worth more than £6 million, for people with learning disabilities, mental health issues and other support needs, put out to tender.

The council’s petitions committee examined the petition, supported by People First East Lothian, Smart Talk Group, ELCAP advisory group and Ark Housing Service Users Group, at a meeting in Haddington last Thursday.

Members heard that news of the tendering process – approved by cabinet in March – had angered hundreds of support workers and service users, who felt they had been kept in the dark about the plans while decisions were made by council officials “behind closed doors”.

Principal petitioner Lorna Wynn, an inclusion and self-advocacy co-ordinator with disability advice service Partners in Advocacy, said: “When I was speaking to people about the tendering process, they got very upset and quite confused.

“Most people with learning disabilities don’t even know this is happening because they’re simply not getting the information.

“If people see decisions being made behind closed doors about how they live and who they get support from, they think all this talk becomes absolutely meaningless because the decision is taken away from them.”

Ms Wynn explained that the most serious concern of service users was that they would have to say goodbye to their current carers and support staff if the number of service providers was streamlined.

“The relationships with the existing staff are extremely important to people,” said Ms Wynn.

“People in East Lothian, who get services, are very lucky because they have staff that work with them for a long time and the people here want to keep that.”

Tranent man Robert Auld, representing the Port Seton-based Smart talk and LD forum, told the meeting: “My wife (Jean) and I get support and have people with us that we know well.

“We want to be able to choose who provides us with support.”

Gordon Miller, acting head of adult social care, admitted that there had been a lack of consultation with service users about the Homecare Procurement Project during the first stage of the plans.

He said: “I don’t think we’ve done that as well as we could have to date.

“I think we’ve missed a number of opportunities to really create processes that would have brought people in to share in the different discussions and there are lessons to learn.”

He added that the project was reaching the end of the first stage and there would be a “natural pause” during the summer months, before ‘specialist’ care services were put out to tender.

He explained that officials would use that break to rethink how to improve service users’ access to information and understanding of the changes.

He also stressed at least 40 per cent of service users would experience no interruption to their care.

Councillor Willie Innes called for the project to be halted, saying: “I think we need a proper delay that will allow users to be informed.”

However, Council leader, Councillor David Berry was opposed to a delay, saying: “It’s a bit like shutting the stable door after the horse has gone.”

Though he added: “Our process doesn’t seem to have worked very well in this case and we should look at that as an administration.”