Members of Carmarthenshire’s Health and Social Care Scrutiny Committee have supported a review of the county council’s luncheon clubs which recommends the authority discontinues its provision.
Six recommendations were put before the committee as part of a final report compiled by a Task and Finish Group, established to review luncheon club provision across Carmarthenshire.
The politically-balanced Task and Finish Group considered a wide range of evidence between October 2008 and June 2009 before compiling their report.
Its key recommendation is that the council works with independent and voluntary sector providers to expand the provision of luncheon clubs, thus allowing the council to divert resources to meet priority care services and their statutory responsibilities.
The committee sought assurance that before the closure of any local authority luncheon clubs alternative provision would be identified.
Chair of the Task and Finish Group, Cllr Jane Tremlett, said: “The authority does not have a statutory duty to provide luncheon clubs, and very few local authorities provide these services elsewhere in Wales.
“The clubs have been running at less than 60 per cent capacity for the last four years, and this cost is no longer sustainable.”
Currently, the authority operates 17 luncheon clubs as part of its overall provision of community services, at a net cost of £354,000.
The group concluded that by withdrawing the direct provision of luncheon clubs, the authority could save a minimum of £200,000, which could be re-directed to statutory and priority care services.
The group recommended that the authority works with the Carmarthenshire Association of Voluntary Services to provide advice and guidance to the independent and voluntary sector to ensure the sustainability of the current independent sector provision.
Cllr Tremlett added: “Throughout our review, we have visited many independently-operated luncheon clubs which are working very well, and probably better than our authority-run clubs.
“It is our view that the authority should support the independent and voluntary sector to expand their provision, and to set up a small fund to support one-off payments to help them establish.”
The Task and Finish Group’s report, following its approval by scrutiny committee, will now be presented at the next meeting of the Executive Board.
As part of their investigative role, Scrutiny Committees can establish a Task and Finish Group during each municipal year.
These are sub-groups of the main committee which are asked to investigate specific issues and report back findings and recommendations for approval before presenting them to the Executive Board.
The purpose of groups is to contribute to the development of new policy or to undertake a piece of investigative scrutiny work. Final reports are made available when the work of the group is completed.
