Thursday 21 January 2010

Missing the obvious

Carmarthenshire county council is failing to properly plan for the increasing costs of an ageing population, claimed Plaid Cllr David Jenkins. Cllr Jenkins has raised a series of detailed questions about the council’s financial position, including the reasons for a significant overspend on services for the elderly.

Cllr Jenkins said, “There is plenty of data available indicating that the population is ageing, but the council appears not to have adequately allowed for that in its budget. When I queried this, I was told that the council did indeed try to estimate for this, but had underestimated the costs. Worst of all, they actually told me that they have got it wrong every year for the past few years – they seem not to be learning from previous mistakes.

“The fact that the council has regularly and consistently under-estimated the growth of the elderly population in the county is also relevant in the context of their proposals to close care homes. It is crazy to talk about reducing the provision of care homes when they have effectively admitted that they do not really know how many people will need them, but

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