Evening Press leader

The people who apply for home help do so because they desperately need assistance. Many are elderly and too frail to manage. Others are incapacitated through illness or disability. Without support they simply could not cope.

Yet City of York Council sees things differently. The social services committee views them not as our most vulnerable citizens whose basic needs should be protected, but as "customers". And if they cannot pay the going rate, they become ex-customers.

Scandalously the council recently hiked home help charges from £2.90 to £4.75 per hour. As many of the people concerned are among the poorest members of our community, the outcome was predictable. Nearly ten per cent of social services' "customers" have been forced to cancel their home help. Yet more have had to cut down on their hours.

We might have expected the council to respond by rethinking its charging policy. Or, at the very least, councillors should have agreed to investigate the circumstances of those individuals who have dropped out of the scheme.

After all, the reason they asked for a home help in the first instance was because they could not manage alone. Now they are alone. This suggests that soon they could be living in an unhygienic home. But to its eternal shame, the council has shown little interest in their plight. All it can say is that "customers do sometimes reconsider", a reaction that is breathtakingly dismissive.

Yesterday we reported another outcome of this council's increasingly arrogant approach. The York City Baths Club is pulling out of swimming lessons at the Barbican due to another extortionate price hike, this time at the council-run pools. Now there are fears that many children will be unable to attend the alternative swimming sessions.

The elderly, disabled people and children are the ones to suffer through this council's decisions. We are left to wonder what has become of Labour, the party that used to consider itself a friend of the disenfranchised and underprivileged.

see also 'Price hike sees the vulnerable cut down on home help'

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