Sheltered Accomodation Review

OK one of the projects I've been involved in recently is with the review of sheltered accommodation at the District Council - this has involved 10 to 3pm meetings at Forest Green Rovers - possibly 5 or 6 meetings in total by the time we finish and report in November. It is great to see tenants, officers and cross-party councillors so far agreeing on ways forward....although sad we have to do this....basically £500,000 will go from the budget so it means some pretty big changes - however we are all trying to minimise the impact on the most vulnerable.....the following statement was agreed by tenants, Councillors and officers attending the last Project Board meeting held on 26 September 2012:

“The Moving Forwards Project has been working on the way that the sheltered housing service needs to run on the future. We have to do this because we will no longer get half a million pounds a year from Gloucestershire County Council. This is virtually guaranteed to stop in April. For the first time tenants, Councillors and officers have been working together to decided what to do about this with the best interests of the service at heart. We are working to ensure that services are protected as far as possible and trying to work for a solution that will not increase the financial impact on tenants. We will be producing a report, with recommendations, in November. This will be considered by the Council and we will recommend our proposals be subject to a tenant ballot.”