Fife’s opposition councillors are to launch a bid to overturn a decision to close 10 council-run care homes.
Labour will join independents to call for an emergency full council meeting as soon as possible to discuss the issue.
The move follows a row over how the issue was hand-led at Tuesday’s meeting of the social work and health committee, with Labour leader Alex Rowley branding it “an affront to democracy.”
Those calling for the meeting need the support of a quarter of the council or 20 members and if that can be mustered, the meeting must be held within 14 days.
While the SNP/Lib Dem administration has defended both its decision and its handling of the situation, Mr Rowley claimed the six-week consultation was a “Mickey Mouse exercise” which had been rendered meaningless.
Mr Rowley said the committee’s decision to “ignore” the wishes of the majority of participants was an insult to care home residents, their families and staff.
The six administration committee members voted to close all of the council’s care homes and move residents to new, private or not-for-profit sector homes once they are built.
The process could take several years but it is hoped residents will be able to move to their new accommodation together rather than be split between various different facilities.
Assurances have been given that no homes will close until alternative accommodation is ready.’Total U-turn’The tendering process for two of the new homes to be built in Kirkcaldy and Dunfermline to replace Appin House, Raith Gates and Matthew Fyfe will begin as soon as possible, although these will also be privately run rather than in-house as originally indicated.
More than 660 people took part in the consultation and more than 76% of them wanted the new buildings to be run by the local authority.
More than 75% of respondents wanted the council to continue running the remaining seven homes.
Mr Rowley said the consultation results had hardly been mentioned during Tuesday’s meeting, adding, “That makes it a complete waste of time and an insult to those who took part.
“That they now want to privatise the homes is a total U-turn on their part and the consultation has been rendered meaningless.”
He added, “I’m questioning the competency of them taking a motion in the way they did and with such a small number of councillors.
“We need a full council meeting to convince them not to make the decision purely on cost because there are so many other factors that need consideration.”
Mr Rowley said his was not a public versus private sector debate but claimed mixed provision was necessary to keep standards high. At present the private sector was forced to drive up standards to compete with council-run homes, which had higher levels of staff training.
Mr Rowley siad, “If you have low training, low skills and low morale, you have a high turnover of staff.
“You’re taking away the relationship that can be built up between staff and clients, which isn’t good, particularly for those with dementia.”Labour ‘heads in the sand’Lib Dem councillor Tim Brett, who chairs the social work and health committee, told The Courier the decision to close the homes had been taken to ensure the future of a full range of services for older people.
He was confident the consultation had been thorough and everything had been done to get comments from residents, relatives and staff.
Mr Brett said, “We said yesterday that, yes, there was a strong majority of people wanting us to maintain our own homes but the problem is we have the responsibility of ensuring these services are available.
“In order to ensure we have sufficient services available over that period, regrettably this is what we had to do.” Most respondents wanted to maintain the status quo, he admitted, but added the process of change had begun three years ago following agreement from a cross-party working group.
Mr Brett said, “Even if the council had been able to build the new homes itself, we still would have been asking people to move.
“The only other option would have been allowing the homes to deteriorate that’s not acceptable.”
He accepted the plan had been to build new council-run homes but the financial plight meant the proposals had to change, adding, “I believe Labour are putting their heads in the sand and ignoring the financial position of local authorities.”