Disability advice forum supporting Rutherglen and Cambuslang to close

A DISABILITY forum which gave advice to Rutherglen and Cambuslang residents has been forced to shut down after funding was withdrawn.

South Lanarkshire Council provided South Lanarkshire Disability Forum with £62,000 for 2009/10, while NHS Lanarkshire gave £5000.

Now both parties have withdrawn their cash support and the forum closed earlier this month.

The council have said that discussions had taken place over issues regarding the management of the forum.

They have now transferred the forum’s self directed support service to the Scottish Personal Assistant Employers Network and insist that their Social Work department are more than capable of providing information for people with disabilities.

The transfer of the Self Directed Support Service followed after the council reportedly lost faith in the forum’s board.

Forum chairman George Livingstone estimated that the centre received 40 to 50 calls per week, either by phone or in person, from those seeking assistance and in the 2009/10 financial year it helped obtain £300,000 in due benefits.

He said: “There were two funders of the forum. One was South Lanarkshire Council and the other was NHS Lanarkshire. Much the larger of these two were the council. The reason they gave (for withdrawing the funding) was that they had no confidence in the board of the forum to provide the Self Directed Support Service. However, that’s only part of what they funded the forum to do.

“Apparently they took this decision round about October and November of 2009. In mid-February this year, those rumours were confirmed orally to us by a couple of members of the social work resources department.

“That was then confirmed in writing in the middle of the next month.

“There was no opportunity to gain further funding because of the date. How can we obtain funds when most of the funds are spent for the coming year?”

A South Lanarkshire Council spokesman insisted the forum were given ample time to find alternative funding.

They said: “Discussions have taken place with the forum over a lengthy period of time regarding management issues within the organisation.

“In order to allow the main service area, the Self Directed Support Service, to develop, an alternative organisation has been identified.

“The Scottish Personal Assistant Employers Network has taken over the management of the service from Monday, May 17, 2010.

“The Board of South Lanarkshire Disability Forum was advised at the end of 2009 that funding may not be available after March 31, 2010. This allowed a full three months for the Forum to look at alternative funding and to develop a business plan to take the organisation forward.

“Social Work Resources, in partnership with a number of organisations, can provide a range of information and advice for people with disabilities and their families. Anyone seeking advice or support should contact their local Social Work office or Money Matters services in the first instance.”

A spokesperson for NHS Lanarkshire said: “There are numerous voluntary organisations working within Lanarkshire who provide services to the community in a variety of formats.

“Services include palliative care, support to carers, special interest groups, patient advocacy and many others.

“Some of these are funded by NHS Lanarkshire and the local authorities. “However, the requests made for funding do outstrip our available budget for such organisations. We have established close working relationships with our local authority partners and determined joint criteria for funding voluntary organisation and established a clear process for approval of proposals, although this is limited to the available budget each year.

“Together with our local authority partners, we have agreed to continue funding the Self Directed Support Service with the organisation that has taken over the management of this service.”