Handyman service to go in Wolverhampton City Council cutbacks
A handyman service for older people and keep-fit classes for pensioners will be scrapped under cuts in council funding.
Wolverhampton City Council has already announced this week that 2,000 staff, a third of the workforce, will go as it tries to save £123 million.
But under a new wave of planned cuts in services, it can be revealed that 'preventative services' designed to help people stay active and living in their own homes are proposed to be stripped of funding.
Signpost, a quarterly newsletter funded by the council and distributed with the Wolverhampton Chronicle, is also to end. Altogether theses cuts will save £140,000 a year if they go ahead. The handyperson service only has enough money to carry on until the end of March.
It is offered to people aged 60 and over who own their homes and want draft proofing, furniture moving, stair rails installed, loose cables, floorboards and carpets dealing with, small plumbing jobs and better security. People get the help free of charge.
Meanwhile 800 people currently attend groups using a scheme called the Active Older People's Fund. They include keep-fit classes and yoga sessions.
Anthony Ivko, assistant director for adult social care, said: "The handyperson service has been funded by grant funding, which expires at the end of March 2014. No funding is committed beyond March 31. Whilst preventative services can reduce demand for statutory services later on, none of these particular services have demonstrated a direct link with reducing demand."
But Pat O'Dowd, chairman of the Wolverhampton Pensioners Convention, said: "We are here again, with the elderly and disabled being hit. The whole point of this funding in the first place was to help people stay fit and active."
The proposal is part of large scale cuts proposed for Wolverhampton City Council this week.
Council leader Roger Lawrence has said the authority is being force to make sweeping savings due to huge government cuts.
Writing in the Express & Star yesterday he said: "I have been a councillor in Wolverhampton for more than 30 years and I've never known our financial position to be as challenging as it is now."
