Somerset’s Care Quality Commission (CQC) Assessment raises serious questions about the performance and competence of the Liberal Democrats running Somerset Council. While frontline staff and carers are working hard, the Liberal Democrats are still not providing effective leadership despite having been in charge of the Council for four years.
The CQC found that Somerset Council's adult social care services ‘requires improvement’, with some vulnerable residents waiting years for assessments, reviews and support. The report highlights delays of up to 938 days for Care Act assessments, 1,136 days for care reviews and 850 days for carers' assessments. It also found that carers were not always aware of their rights, respite support was not consistently offered, and contingency planning was often lacking.
The CQC says Somerset Council is still on a 'journey of improvement' and cannot consistently demonstrate that its various transformation programmes are delivering better outcomes for residents.
Taxpayers will rightly ask how this can be the case after four years of Liberal Democrat control where they've spent millions of pounds on consultants and transformation programmes. Residents were told that these changes would improve services, become more efficient and deliver better outcomes. Yet the CQC's conclusion is that the council still cannot clearly demonstrate that those improvements are being delivered in practice.
After years of restructuring, transformation plans and expensive consultancy support, residents deserve more than promises of future improvement.
This should be a wake-up call for the Liberal Democrat administration.
