Liberal Democrats dismayed at yet another Tory attack on the elderly

8.56.14am UTC (GMT +0000) Tue 1st May 2007

Liberal Democrats on Suffolk County Council have today branded Tory proposals to increase charges for non-residential care services, a body blow for Suffolk's elderly and their families.

The proposals, which will be discussed at the Cabinet meeting on 3rd April, suggest:

·Increasing charges for Day Care services to £15 per session, a 100% increases as these services are currently free.

·A new 'financial model' for Home Care that will mean the number of people eligible for free home care will fall from 80% to 10%.

·A new charge for Transport which sees the amount people will pay treble - from the current 50p per journey to £1.50 per journey.

·Introduce a new charge for community support to vulnerable individuals of £14,85 per hour: the service is currently free.

·Increase the charges for community meals by 30p per annum with the possibility of further increases next year.

Speaking about the proposals, Group Leader Cllr Kathy Pollard said, "This latest Tory trick takes the biscuit. It seems somewhat questionable that they released the Cabinet papers which discussed this on the same day as the School Review, a convenient way to bury bad news over the weekend.

These proposals are quite simply a body blow for the people who use these services, the only effect they will have will be to create more fear and more confusion. It also seems they can't quite make their minds up, are they privatising all county run day care services or going to keep them and just charge people more?

Until this Conservative administration starts to manage the council in a financially sensible way I fear there is every possibility we will end up with no adult care service in Suffolk at all. As the debate at Full Council about our call-in of the privatisation plans showed, the Conservatives seem to have no firm answers to our concerns over the figures they're basing these changes on. These plans were also in the secret KPMG report we uncovered earlier this year but as these increases clearly show the Conservatives still haven't got their figures or their costs under control."