Hammersmith Bridge and Hammersmith Social care alternative

Not enough people read this to justify a new post, but some information about Hammersmith Bridge cropped-up.

How the survey was done
abasurveying.co.uk/portfolio-items/hammersmith-bridge/

Why the bridge is thought too weak for traffic: "critical faults" is all it says. here
lbhf.gov.uk/transport-and-roads/roads-bridges-and-pavements/hammersmith-bridge-closed
Someone has started some freedom of information requests on a site that shares replies
whatdotheyknow.com/search/hammersmith%20bridge/all

What the £40 million is for.
I guess that the problem is council-speak. The right decision has probably been taken but councils can't explain why they need £40 milllion; they don't see the need to explain or guess what voters want to know. Richmond council changed a load of street lamps for probably very good reasons to do with cost, but couldn't explain why. The circular said the old ones had "reached the end of their working lives".

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Hammersmith & Fulham Council will abolish home care charges for elderly and Disabled people, it was announced last night (3 December 2014).

Speaking at a packed public meeting organised to celebrate the United Nation’s International Day of Disabled People in Hammersmith Town Hall, H&F Council leader, Cllr Stephen Cowan, said: “I am pleased we have found the money from back office cuts, such as from the council’s PR and admin budgets, and today announce that this administration will abolish what has rightly become known as a tax on disability.”

The final decision will be voted on at the council’s annual budget-setting process in February. If approved, the changes will take effect from next April.

The council says that abolishing care charges will cost £324,000 a year in lost income but that the scheme is being funded by £400,000 cuts in PR, council publications and lamp post banners.

There are 1,266 people in H&F who need help to carry out everyday tasks, such as having a bath, cleaning or doing the shopping. H&F’s home care charges are currently paid by 313 people in H&F. The current home care charge is £12 per hour and for some residents this vital service can be as much as £281 a week.

 - quote from Hammersmith web site December 2014

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I don't know much about this but it sounds good. There is a lot I don't know!

I do know the Richmond council list of social care agencies, annotated with care quality commission reports and personal notes for one client here

http://bit.ly/homecarerichmond

I imagine that Hammersmith, as an inner city area, has more budgets floating-about than Richmond - budgets that can be transferred to social care or PR, council publications and lamp post banners. On the other hand Richmond has money for Villiage Plans including cutting down trees, anti-cruising lights, anty-gypsy gates, a £5,000 grant to a brass band, and the things written on blue signs saying "I am voting .... for.... ". I'm told that 58% of Richmond spending is on social care, so it only takes a small change in social care spending to fund or cut a lot of the things that people notice more, like pot-hole mending or sixth forms in schools or weekly bin collection or a brass band. Which seems a terrible system.

I don't know how many people fund their own care, un-known or barely-known to the council in Hammersmith - maybe there are community care plans for both boroughs somewhere online with estimates on them, although they could be among the back office costs and publications that are cut-back to fund more care.

I don't know how much money Hammersmith saves when a client can postpone their move to residential care, with its expensive 3-shift costs, and so postpone the time that they run-out of money for fees and ask the council to pay. It could be that free home care (at the point of delivery) on presription or social worker referral saves money rather than costing money. I imagine that there are charitable trusts and central government organisations that would fund this kind of research if it hasn't already been done. At the time that Richmond Council ran-down its respite care daycentres, they admitted in a public meeting that the work hadn't been done; they had no idea how much money the spending saved them.

Clearly the cost of means-testing is reduced if people qualify for care whatever their means. There's an implication, without detail, in the Hammersmmith system that the council  manages the care. So maybe there is an opt-out or opt-in system. But if people can manage their own care on a subsidy, there's complexity again in the extreme case of someone who exploits an ill person or fakes illness in order to get money for another purpose. So, broadly, it saves a lot to have no means-testing but I don't know how the detail works.

I don't know the party politics of Hammersmith Council.

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Talking of Hammersmith, in case someone from there reads this, it would be good if they could get experts from Bucharest to look after Hammersmith Bridge. I understand that there is a bigger one to the same design in Bucharest so there might be someone who is good at maintaining the things.