Councillors and activists are calling for the council to retake control of the adult care services provided by Your Choice Barnet amid fears the service is facing financial difficulties.

Labour’s deputy group leader Councillor Barry Rawlings has tabled a motion, to be discussed at the council meeting on April 16, calling for Barnet Borough Council to consider taking services for people with learning difficulties back in house.

He claims Your Choice Barnet has had to request a loan of around £2million from sister company Barnet Homes in order to continue to operate.

Cllr Rawlings said: “Barnet Council put Your Choice at arms length in order to guarantee the financial future of the borough, but instead it lost money. To make up the shortfall, it is cutting and downgrading jobs, meaning users are not getting the good quality, well trained staff they need.

“These are very vulnerable people that rely on Your Choice for their care services – if the company goes bust or if the quality of care gets worse it is these vulnerable people that will suffer.”

Your Choice Barnet was outsourced as a Local Authority Trading Company in February 2012 in order to generate savings for the council in its second year. The council hoped outsourcing would create a budget surplus of £263,000 by 2015 and £493,000 by 2016.

However, Your Choice has a forecast deficit of up to £700,000 for this financial year.

Cllr Rawlings said the cash flow problem was not aided by the fact that from the beginning of this month service providers are being paid in arrears, after the care has been provided, rather than in advance. This means Your Choice will not receive the money for March and April until the beginning of May, meaning there is effectively a two month gap.

He added: “We’ve had concerns about the viability of the business plan for Your Choice services since the proposal was first made two years ago, and the current financial projections do not look encouraging. The council has an opportunity to consider bringing Your Choice back in-house now at very little cost – in a year’s time this could end up costing them millions.”

The Barnet Alliance for Public Services (BAPS) will hold a meeting to explain the case for returning Your Choice Barnet in-house on Thursday at the Greek Cypriot Community Centre in Britannia Road.

BAPS coordinator Tirza Waisel said: “Now that ‘Your Choice Barnet’ is struggling financially, the management is attacking staff and service levels. It is outrageous that the quality of the service should fall just because Barnet Council got its sums wrong.

“The fate of Your Choice Barnet is a frightening example of the recklessness at the heart of the One Barnet programme and of its moral bankruptcy. The whole programme should be abandoned now before it is too late and we lumber into a fiasco encompassing more services.”