Suffolk Outsourcing

I read with interest Richard Driscoll's concerns. (BFP 5/11/10), but he is fundamentally mistaken in his belief that the actions of Suffolk County Council in proposing to outsource services have any support from Liberal Democrats who, with the exception of one Councillor, voted against this proposal. Nor is this outsourcing anything to do with the Coalition Government which has clearly set out to protect vulnerable services. Indeed the Spending Review committed a extra £1 billion towards the local authority budget for Social Care, as well as £1 billion towards the care of the elderly being looked after by the NHS, so there is no need for any changes to Care Homes in Suffolk.

Any such change will leave taxpayers hostage to increasing charges by the private sector with no recourse but to pay any higher bills demanded for those with no means to pay the bills themselves!

There is opportunity for cuts but that must be driven by reducing bureaucracy and red tape and Chris Huhne in the energy department is showing this can be done. We need to dramatically cut the red tape and the size of forms and the processes behind them. We need to learn to trust people more, with serious actionable penalties for those who abuse the system.

In essence the outsourcing is simply a proposal by an extreme right wing administration served by a seriously overpaid council executive not capable of doing the job!

Rather than inflict this on us they should all resign so we can elect Councillors committed to Suffolk and its people, and appoint officers on real world salaries who are capable of doing the job of managing public services in Suffolk.