Feedback – Cutting Our Cloth Debate Thank you for your feedback on the Cutting Our Cloth debate. The feedback received has been really useful as a snapshot of how residents think our proposals will affect communities and what can be done to lessen the impact of these cuts. Some residents have raised concerns and requested further information or clarification on some issues. In this Question and Answer feature, we are providing further information which we hope will clarify these matters. The subjects explained are:  Review of care homes in Denbighshire  School uniform grant  Payments for children with disabilities A full list of responses to the debate will appear on the website in early December and a summary of the feedback will be sent to participants. Again, thank you for taking the time to get involved in the Cutting Our Cloth debate. Issue Further information Review of care homes in Denbighshire The Council funds over 500 older people to live in care homes across Denbighshire, with just 54 - or 10% - of those living in the three care homes (Awelon, Ruthin, Dolwen in Denbigh and Cysgod y Gaer in Corwen). A number of people have requested further information and have also raised concerns on the review of care homes in the county. Older people frequently tell us that they want to live in their own homes as they get older, not move into residential care, so we want to explore how we can develop alternatives to this such as Extra Care Housing Schemes. The provision of 'standard' residential care (i.e. not nursing care or specialist elderly mental health care), which is what local authority owned homes can only provide, is rapidly reducing in demand as alternatives such as Extra Care Housing Schemes are being developed in partnership with other Housing Associations/ housing providers in key communities across the County. Part of the consultation would be about what they think about the council supporting the development of more of this type of provision as an alternative to the three council owned residential care homes, which are a significantly more expensive to run than equivalent services provided by the third and independent sectors. In relation to the 54 individuals living in Awelon, Dolwen and Cysgod y Gaer, many of them are likely to need to move into alternative settings as their needs increase and they develop needs for nursing or specialist elderly mental health care. The Council has given a commitment to ensure that they will not close any council owned care home if there are individuals living there whose needs can not be met in alternative provision. We recognise that any change can be upsetting for those involved and that is why we are considering starting a consultation during which, we will meet with residents and their relatives or representatives to explain how services could be provided and to gather their views on any changes. Part of any consultation will include an impact assessment for those affected. We would like to reassure service users and their families that when a consultation is agreed by members, we will work with them and support them throughout the process. The consultation would include people living within the three Extra Care Housing Schemes (Gorwel Newydd, Rhyl, Nant y Mor, Prestatyn and Llys Awelon, Ruthin) where domiciliary care services are provided by the council. These housing schemes for older people are owned by Housing Associations, not the local authority, and so the consultation would purely be about the provision of care services within these housing schemes. Arrangements for housing support or any other services in the building will not be affected so will not be included as part of this consultation. School Uniform Grants Concerns have been raised on the school uniform grant proposal. It will also look at the day care provision at Hafan Deg in Rhyl, which currently has ten service users and ten members of staff. Currently the Council receives a grant from Welsh Government to fund school uniforms for Year 7 pupils who are entitled to free school meals. The grant for Year 7 will remain for the period that the Welsh Government continue to provide funding and we are going to target all parents to claim the grant to maximise take up. The take up of this grant has been below 100%. so the Council will be targeting all parents whose children qualify, to ensure they apply for this entitlement. The Council also then chooses, as a local authority, to provide a discretionary school uniform grant for free school meals pupils in Years 8-11 which is funded by Education. The savings proposal put forward by Education (of £4,000) refers only to Years 811 where it is proposed we will no longer pay for the uniform in those years. Schools do however have the discretion to pay for this for parents, provided they include it in their charging policy so there is a safety net in place. The Council wants to make it absolutely clear that it does not expect children who cannot afford school uniform to go without. Children with disabilities We have received a number of comments regarding our proposals to introduce a parental contributions policy for services for children with disabilities. People are concerned this would target a low income and vulnerable group within society and we feel we need to clarify what these proposals actually mean. Far from reducing opportunities for children with disabilities, we are looking to make more opportunities widely available to them. We are continually working towards developing communities which are sensitive and inclusive to the needs of children with disabilities so they can enjoy and participate in a wide range of activities without needing to be assessed. We are currently developing programme to improve accessibility across the County. We feel it is reasonable that families should take responsibility for transporting their children to respite and/or activities. Should the child's needs require transport, families in these circumstances have access to Disability Living Allowance benefits, which include a transport cost element so in effect, we are removing duplicate funding that is already being provided. In addition we propose to introduce a parental contribution of £25 per week towards the cost of respite and relief services for those families that are working. This would exclude families on benefits. It must be noted that the contributions proposed represent a very small proportion of the overall service cost to the Council so a fee of £25 is extremely low. Clearly we will be discussing the impact on individual families as part of the implementation and there is no suggestion that we would see these families struggle to care for their children.