Labour and their allies have set “new levels of incompetence” in the continuing saga over the future of Fife’s care homes, an SNP councillor has claimed.
West Fife and Coastal Villages councillor Bill Walker, making his scathing remarks following Tuesday’s powderkeg meeting over the issue at Fife House, said it had cost the taxpayer “tens of thousands of pounds.”
As we reported, the meeting set up in the hope of debating the highly controversial issue was all over within minutes because of a legal technicality. And Mr Walker has now waded into the row, slamming what he termed “Labour’s feeble attempts.”
“Less than two weeks ago, they didn’t know that the annual budget they put forward did not balance, they didn’t know it would have cost the council an additional £28 million in funding cuts and they didn’t know they had to set a budget for the police at the same time,” he said.
“Now, they don’t know that council meetings have to be run in accordance with the rules that they themselves have repeatedly supported. Then they had the hypocrisy to try and blame council officers rather than have their own incompetence exposed yet again.
“They didn’t know the basic special rules about asking for a special meeting otherwise, we would have special meetings almost every day.”
Mr Walker added that “Labour’s feeble attempt to overturn a democratic decision already taken” but which they don’t agree with has cost Fife taxpayers dearly “in completely pointless costs of time and travel for staff, councillors and the general public who turned up in the public galleries expecting something.”
“Labour couldn’t amass enough votes through the rules to conduct a special meeting, which they should have known in advance,” he continued. “The original committee decision to seek bids from private and voluntary providers to build and run replacement homes for Fife Council’s ageing stock of homes was, and still is, the right decision for the people of Fife.Standards”Already, 85% of residential care home places are now provided by the private and voluntary sector. The council only provides 15% of the places. By involving the private and public sectors even more, we are able to improve facilities for example, en suite bathroom facilities with each room, all maintained at independent Care Commission standards.
“Our decision further means we’ll be able to provide this for older people in a few years, rather than waiting decades until Fife Council could afford to replace all our homes ourselves.”
Mr Walker said he understood the concerns that families will have over a change to the arrangements for looking after their loved ones. But he added, “The sad fact is that those concerns have been made infinitely worse by a deliberate campaign of scaremongering by Labour councillors who will stop at nothing to advance their own political careers.
“I hope that councillors of all political affiliations will accept that the decision has been made and it is now the responsibility of all of us to support the council’s social care professionals in implementing the decision.
“I’m absolutely certain that if we all do this, we will be able to reassure our care home residents and their families that when the time comes, they will be able to move into the brand new care home of their choice with the minimum of distress or disruption.”