There has been “no visible activity” four months after the Local Government Ombudsman required improvements from Bedford Borough Council’s adult social care, according to a Bedford Borough resident.
But the council said the issues had not been forgotten about or “put under the rug”.
Speaking at Tuesday’s Adult Services Overview and Scrutiny Committee (25 November), the resident said the ombudsman’s decision in July required the council to deliver several actions.
These included a revised support plan, staff training, and ensuring all adult services charging policies were compliant with statutory guidance.
“The council voluntarily gave these [assurances] to the ombudsman,” he said.
“[Following] my request to the ombudsman, due to trust issues, a two-month deadline was given to Bedford Borough Council to resolve a lot of these fundamental issues.
“For example, to fix the communications between adult services and finance, and to have a debt management policy in place so that social workers and Bedford Borough Council’s finance department could actually deal with it properly and fairly.
“When will this be implemented? It’s now been four months since the decision, and no visible activity has been displayed by the borough. It all seems to have all been forgotten about and put under the rug, it’s as simple as that,” he said.
Not been forgotten
Acting service director, Maura Noone, said she could not discuss case-specific matters in public, and added that the council reviews its adult services charging policy on an annual basis.
This policy covers a “very wide” range of client finance issues.
“We’re currently carrying out an annual review of the charging policy to make sure that it makes certain points explicit for members of the public and for staff, so that there’s no ambiguity,” she said.
“We will also be ensuring that the policy does not contravene or contradict national guidance. I do also want to reassure you that those matters have not been forgotten or put under the rug.
“Now, in terms of the debt management, what I have to say is that no, we don’t have a policy. I’ll be very upfront with you about that.
“What we do have is improved working practices with our debt management colleagues.
“We’ve recently set up another group that will be looking at the debt of individuals to see how we can help those people to either overcome their debt, or pay their debt if that’s what they have, or indeed, if we have to disregard the debt in some cases.
“The whole issue of client finance is fascinating but complicated and a debt management policy for example isn’t an instant fix. These things do take quite some time to resolve. But I can assure you that things have not been swept under the rug,” she said.
By John Guinn
Local Democracy Reporter
