Adult care in Maidenhead and Windsor among cheapest in the UK, hears council

The cash-strapped council has been warned there is no room to make savings on adult care as provisions are already among ‘the cheapest in the country’.

Executive director of adult services and health, Kevin McDaniel, told Maidenhead and Windsor councillors on Monday that ‘any less money’ spent on adult care would be virtually impossible.

He said approximately 1,500 people in the borough need care but are unable to pay, which ‘makes the spend even more dramatic’ for the ‘few people’.

The council spends up to £10million on domiciliary care and up to £18million a year on residential placements which have seen ‘massive inflation’ in the past year due to heating and staffing costs.

Mr McDaniel said: “I’m staffing our teams to our minimum safe level.

“That means if somebody phones with a safeguarding concern, we respond promptly and make sure that our residents are safe.

“For those who are safe and need an assessment, we don’t go out on the same day. Some people wait several weeks before we get out to them.

“We’re certainly not running a gold standard in response… but the vast majority of our spend goes on the cost of that care.”

He added that approximately 94 per cent of providers in the borough are ‘good or outstanding’, which is around 10 per cent higher than the national average.

The council is under ‘huge pressure’ to spend more as businesses want to increase staff wages, and care providers are seeking up to 18 per cent increases in the next year.

He said more people in the borough provide care for a minimum wage ‘in this low-paid industry’ than work in the NHS.

“We are very fortunate our care providers are very good. It’s a massive workforce and it does brilliant work every day,” he added.

“We can’t do it for any less money. That’s a testament to the quality of staff and the quality of the work that’s provided by those care agencies.

“It doesn’t help us with the budget position, and we will do everything we can to stay in at the lowest cost place but we’re already right at the bottom.”

In October, the Department of Health and Social Care devised a list of last year’s adult social care budgets in ‘absolute terms based on the returns’ provided by councils.

Mr McDaniel said data he calculated using cost-per-head of the population showed the RBWM was the second cheapest per head in the country for all ages and the sixth cheapest for the over-65 population.

He added: “There is only one local authority which is the top 10 cheapest for every head and population measure I just described – us. We are the cheapest adult service in the country give or take.”

Councillor Julian Tisi (Lib Dem, Eton and Castle) asked: “The things that RBWM can control, it seems we’re doing rather well and making savings but the things that we can’t control have gone through the roof through no fault of our own – would that be fair?”

Mr McDaniel said: “There are things within the space that we can do – we negotiate hard with our providers. I think overall we’ve got the right balance, but the cost-of-living crisis has particularly hit this workforce because of most of them being paid very low for the jobs they do.”

Meeting chair Cllr Chris Moriarty (Lib Dem, Cox Green) added: “It doesn’t strike me as being particularly sustainable. It echoes the point about that extra [government funding], it feels like it’s a few coins rattling around in an empty piggy bank.”

Mr McDaniel added: “The bottom line is, our income doesn’t match the cost of providing services which are good quality at the moment. Within the constraints we’ve got, [it’s] being realistic about the things that matter most and where we can make the biggest difference.”