Proposed cuts to Ruth House

The Children and Families Select Committee produced a report recently discussing ‘efficiency options’ with regards to spending by Children’s Services and Safeguarding.

Outlined in the document from Surrey County Council (under Conservative control) were concerns that they were not delivering services within their ‘financial envelope’. This is political speak for ‘spending too much money and we need to make cuts’

One area where they have identified they want to make cuts is Ruth House, the residential part of Freemantle’s school (to which it is attached) where students have extended learning programmes.

The committee reported that “Efficiencies of £1.3m were identified from this financial envelope the majority of which (c£1.1m) will come from the reduction of internal provision. Namely reducing Ruth House beds from 20 to 10 and delaying the opening of Applewood, (in Caterham) a new resource that has not yet started to take in children.”

What these proposed cuts do is threaten the very existence of a public service that brings much-needed respite to parents of children with severe learning disabilities not only in the Woking area but all across Surrey. The entire project has been a catalogue of disasters from start to finish with failures in planning permission for alternative sites, considerations over means testing and general reorganisation of the service as a whole. It is another example of the catastrophic cuts already being considered, and in many cases already underway in Conservative controlled councils up and down the country.

Action needs to be taken now to save our essential public services and whilst we are all aware that cuts need to be made, cutting them where they are needed most in places like Ruth House is not the way forward. It is bad enough that our NHS and other public services are stretched to the financial limit, but taking aware key services like this without so much of a whimper is downright wrong whichever way you look at it. It speaks volumes that even the local councillor for the area in which Ruth House is located had to read about the proposals in the newspapers. Where is the transparency and openness that is essential where our public services are concerned?

I am appalled that such a thing as this can even be considered.