The controversial vote to offload Fife’s council-run care homes was “a sham” and relied on a “distortion” of previously agreed motions, opposition councillors have claimed ahead of a powder-keg meeting.
Next week the full council will hear claims that administration members twisted the truth in a cynical bid to force through the unpopular changes.
There was outrage this month when the region’s social work and health committee narrowly voted to offload all 10 of the area’s council-run care homes.
A formal complaint was promptly lodged by Labour leader Alex Rowley and independents Andrew Rodger, Bryan Poole and Willie Clarke. Their complaint alleges that procedures behind the decision were incompetent and “grossly misleading” to the public.
Their anger centred on a motion made by committee chairman Councillor Tim Brett, who called on members to confirm the unanimous view of a cross-party review group which was presented to the committee in June 2008. That view, Mr Brett said, was that Fife Council needed to start on a programme of replacing residential care places.
Opposition councillors insist what had been agreed in 2008 was “substantially and materially very different”, in that it stated the local authority should remain as a direct provider of residential care homes.
The opposition garnered enough support for the emergency full council meeting, which will be held on Tuesday. A total of 23 councillors have signed a statement aimed at forcing the meeting, and they have insisted that “no case has been made” for the privatisation programme.’Distortion'”We believe that the motion passed at the social work and health committee on February 1 by six votes to five … is both a distortion of what was agreed in June 2008 and a misrepresentation of the primary intention of that decision, which was that the council remain a direct provider of residential care services,” the councillors’ lengthy statement claims.
“We therefore call for a special emergency council meeting to give all councillors the opportunity to discuss this significant change in policy and to bring clarity and honesty to the decision-making process surrounding the future of care homes in Fife.”
The opposition councillors also note that the decision to offload local authority homes appeared to pay little heed to a public consultation exercise, which overwhelmingly backed retention.
“We believe that full council should consider that no case has been made for the privatisation of council-run residential care homes,” the councillors continue. “The consultation carried out was overwhelming in its response…and alter-|native models of provision and expansion opportunities for enhanced community support have not been examined.”
Photo by Flickr user ell brown.