'Social care will be just a dream'

City charities warn they face "decimation" as the Capital imposes £60m care cuts

Social care in action. Pic: Georg Arthur Pflueger on Unsplash

“I understand what budget cuts are about, I’m a CEO,” says Ran Majumder, who runs the Health Agency in Wester Hailes.

“I’m not pointing fingers at anybody here, but the powers that be - at the highest level of government - need to understand that if they don't help the IJB (Independent Joint Boards which oversee health and social care in Scotland) and the NHS with structural deficits, health and social care is going to be a dream.

“It's not going to be preventative in the community. It's actually going to cause that social care to decimate over the next few years.”

Majumder is a worried man - and he has good reason to be. Edinburgh is in the process of implementing £60m of cuts to its social care budget after its board reluctantly agreed to the devastating move in the belief that it is the best way to preserve and protect the city’s most essential care services.

The impact of those cuts will be felt across the city - by those who will no longer receive care packages to help them live independently; at the two council-run care homes which will shut; in community centres where support groups may close or activities to help older people stay active and combat loneliness stop.

‘Decimation’

The term decimation comes from a particularly brutal practice of ancient Roman military leaders. As a punishment for the most severe offences, such as mutiny, they would select one in every ten soldiers for execution, in a move designed to cower the rest into submission.

In one very particular sense, it is an appropriate term for what is happening to social care in Edinburgh, as one pound in every ten spent supporting work in the Third Sector by the IJB - which is jointly funded by two financially-stricken organisations in the city council and NHS Lothian - is being cut this year.

That, however, is just the beginning. The £60m cuts required in the coming 12 months grow in subsequent years, to £108m in 2026/27. It is the scale and cumulative impact of those cuts - in an area of public services well used to what might euphemistically be described as “challenging savings targets” - which is causing the most alarm.

Majumder was one of a series of charity representatives to address the last meeting of the IJB to ask for chance to work with the board to find ways of managing the cuts which might avoid the mass closure of services. Many fear cuts in their IJB-funding will have a double impact as it may lead to the loss of match-funding from other sources.

Perhaps Majumder’s biggest fear, however, is losing the vital connections built up over time with individuals who need support: “They will be lost. We can’t build them back four or five years down the line.”

“Let's work together to find out the best way,” the CEO asked board members. “I do understand cuts have to happen, but can it happen in a better way, in a planned way?”

The Health Agency runs a series of programmes out of its base at the Healthy Living Centre in Wester Hailes, including counselling, promoting healthy eating and physical activity, and supporting people living with cancer and long-term conditions. Majumder fears that successive years of savage funding cuts will end with little of that left.