Barnet Council chiefs may face legal challenge over warden cuts (From Times Series)

Barnet Council chiefs may face legal challenge over warden cuts

9:10am Thursday 11th June 2009

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A LEGAL case may be brought against Barnet Council after it this week pushed through plans to cut wardens services in sheltered housing across the borough.

A letter was presented to council officials calling for a judicial review of the decision to axe on-site carers, who look after elderly and vulnerable residents, which was made at a cabinet meeting on Monday night.

Protesters voiced their disgust at the proposals during an hour-long demonstration outside Barnet House, in High Road, Whetstone, as Tory councillors arrived.

There were also regular outbursts from the public gallery in the committee chamber during the debate on the issue as tensions ran high.

About 150 people crammed into three rooms to hear the decision, which was to approve the use of roaming wardens who can respond to elderly residents when they are in need, via a telephone alarm system.

Marge Lacey, 70, who lives in sheltered housing in Hanshaw Drive, Edgware, said: “We have always been in opposition to these plans but the council hasn’t looked at the overall picture and how it will proceed in the future.

“We are frail, elderly and weak, and it is disgusting the way the council has gone about it.

“The floating service doesn’t work. If someone collapses, they could be dead before help gets there.

“Some people won’t be able to pull the alarm after an accident and we are scared if that happens, there will not be a warden to help us.”

Heckles of “shame on you” and “a travesty of democracy” were directed at the councillors following the decision, before David Young, co–chairman of the Kingsley Court Strategy Committee, presented officials with the legal letter.

He said: “These protests show the council we are not going to stand by and have them take away our wardens who do such an amazing job.”

“What goes around comes around, and we are going to take this to a judicial review.”

Councillors claimed the move will allow support teams to respond more flexibly to the needs of all 55,000 elderly residents in the borough, including those in their own homes.

The changes will be implemented by 2011 and are set to save the council £400,000. Earlier plans to save the £950,000 from the sheltered housing budget were rejected by the cabinet.

Council leader Mike Freer said: “The council will not continue to improve its services by providing the same service year in and year out. We need to look at new and better ways of doing things and the policy agreed at cabinet does just that.

“It will continue to provide a 24–hour alarm service to residents in sheltered accommodation, and perhaps most importantly of all it will support people who chose to remain in their own homes rather than move into sheltered accommodation.

“It will link the provision of support to an individual’s needs for that support more effectively than the current service does.”

A series a petitions signed by 2,631 objectors was submitted to the council, and 88 per cent of people who responded to an original questionnaire disagreed with the warden cuts.

A council spokesman said it will respond shortly to the legal letter and added: “We are very confident our decision making has been robust and open.”

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