Caring for the elderly and vulnerable people with disabilities is one of the most important jobs we do as a society. And yet the people who do this essential work on our behalf are poorly paid. (“Borough care workers vote for strike action over pay cuts”, Times Series, June 5).

Barnet’s Conservative councillors are making a bad situation worse by allowing care workers’ pay to be cut further still. They should admit that the way they have contracted out care services isn’t working. And Councillor Richard Cornelius, should mark National Carers’ Week this week by telling us how he will ensure the service is run in a sustainable way.

On Sunday, I met Janet Solomons, who lives in Golders Green and whose son Benjy is one of the adults who rely on care provided by Your Choice Barnet, where pay is being cut by nearly ten per cent for more than 100 staff. These are some of the lowest paid workers in London and most of them are women who have already been hit hardest by the cost of living crisis.

Janet told me: “Experienced staff are leaving because of the way they’ve been treated. We are worried that standards of care are being put at risk. It will be very difficult for temporary staff with even lower pay and no job security to build a caring relationship with Benjy.”

By setting up Your Choice Barnet as a trading company to run council services, the Conservatives tried to wash their hands of their responsibility for the way the most vulnerable people in our community are cared for. Only two years later it’s obvious that the business plan for Your Choice Barnet is unworkable, as Labour warned at the time. Sadly, it is the staff and disabled people who use the service who are paying the price. If we care about the dignity of adults with disabilities and care home residents, shouldn’t the staff who look after them be paid enough to live on?

Sarah Sackman

Labour parliamentary candidate for Finchley and Golders Green