THE council’s adult social care funding battle has become more challenging after it was revealed that when SEQOL folded they still owed almost three quarters of a million pounds.

More widely, the hurried handover of services previously provided by the failed healthcare firm has left a £1.8 million hole in planned savings for this year.

The added burden brings the projected overspend across all Swindon Borough Council departments for the current financial year to an alarming £7.2 million, leaving just £3 million in reserves.

The cabinet will hear an update on the 2016/17 budget when it meets next week - the report before will outline how the transfer of services from SEQOL to the council left the available management capacity “severely stretched.”

A council spokesman said: “The £726,000 outlined in the adult services element of the budget report refers to an outstanding debt owed to the council by SEQOL.

“This sum was written off by the council to ensure SEQOL staff could be transferred over to the local authority as quickly as possible so there was no disruption for those who receive adult services.

“Adult social care is under significant pressure and the current in-year costs of additional demand on services is estimated to be around £2 million. This is has been caused by an ageing population and the high number of people being discharged from hospital who require varying levels of support.

“A project team is in place to manage the ongoing savings programme and, to date, savings of £3.3 million have been achieved. Yet a further £1.8 million is still required.

“The council will look to achieve this challenging savings target by continually reviewing care packages and managing demand for domiciliary, residential and nursing care.”

The challenge of funding adult social care is being felt by local authorities across the country.

The Local Government Association has been outspoken on the issue, most recently criticising the government for failing to address the funding crisis in their autumn financial statement.

The leader of Swindon Borough Council, David Renard, endorsed those comments and said it didn’t appear that a solution to the pressing problem was imminent.

“Putting more into the NHS but not into social care is not helping the overall picture,” said Coun Renard.

“Everybody is saying it, finding funding is difficult.

“I meet with our local MPs regularly and make my views heard on a number of issues, but around social care I’m not hearing the Government has a plan on how it can be managed.”

When the council set up SEQOL to provide community healthcare services in 2011, the move was opposed by the town's Labour group.


Responding to the news that they owed a significant sum when they ceased operations, Swindon's Labour leader, Jim Grant, said: "This shows the Conservative administration’s experiment to outsource our adult social care services to a private enterprise has utterly failed at a big cost to the Swindon taxpayer. 

"How can they ever say they deliver services efficiently when we have news like this? 

"When Swindon Borough Council set up SEQOL they heralded the company as trend-setting organisation that other areas of the country would also do, it was in effect a Conservative pet project.

"The Labour group refused to support this enterprise running adult social services because there were no guarantees about the quality and efficiency of the services being provided. Our reservations have proven to be founded."