Enough is Enough

95 days

An unprecedented alliance of voluntary sector organisations and care providers is today launching a campaign calling on Oxfordshire County Council to reconsider its 95 Budget Options currently out for consultation.

The Enough is Enough coalition, which includes leading voluntary sector services, information and advice services, and registered care providers, is a coalition, which is voicing concerns about proposals to save a further £50m from Oxfordshire County Council’s budgets on top of year-on-year cuts.

In 95 days’ time from today, Oxfordshire County Council’s Full Cabinet will meet to decide whether the 95 Budget Options totalling £52.6m, will be voted through. Before then, a reduction in the Local Government Settlement will be determined. Both decisions, if made as expected, will risk causing serious harm to the wellbeing of Oxfordshire’s vulnerable residents.

The Enough is Enough alliance says that the 95 Budget Options will affect local vulnerable and elderly people in a cumulative and wide-ranging way; from the wider impact of the removal of funding for subsidised buses to the specific halting of funding for exceptionally high-quality and effective voluntary sector service providers, without whom it is simply not possible to provide social care locally.

A vulnerable person may be someone who has a life-long condition from birth, or one which has crept up over a period of months or years, or a life-changing accident which makes yesterday so much different to today or tomorrow. It could be you or me. All of these issues have a ripple effect breaking on family, friends and our Oxfordshire communities.

We say Enough is Enough. The Budget Options are unacceptable and economically perverse. If applied they will be hugely damaging to the long-term health of NHS provision and cause a crisis in social care and our communities. We will publish updates through to 26 January when Cabinet make their decision and to 16 February, 95 days from today, when Full Cabinet has the final vote on these proposals.

We encourage and urge, residents of Oxfordshire to register your comments and concerns through the Council’s Consultation.