Day care centres for the elderly are among services facing major reorganisation in order to overcome a multi-million pound shortfall in Southend's social services budget.
Verina Weaver, executive councillor for social care today revealed she will "fight tooth and nail" to prevent the closure of services such as day care centres for the elderly and disabled but has warned the council must find ways of overcoming crippling Government underfunding.
Mrs Weaver said: "We have to discuss the details yet, but we are looking at things like unfilled posts which have been frozen in the hope of eventually unfreezing them and recruiting. These include social worker posts which we will now have to delete.
"We will also be making sure that people are 100 per cent eligible for services and cutting back on agency staff who currently cover a whole range of council posts.
"We can't cut back on services we have a legal obligation to provide but we are forced to look at the ones we don't have to legally provide.
"These include day care centres and things like transport to centres such as Southend's Maybrook centre."
Published Thursday January 8, 2004
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