![\"Wallasey](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1_Wallasey-Town-Hall.jpg\")
Wallasey Town Hall(Image: Copyright Unknown)<\/p>\nThe council faces a tough situation going into next yearWallasey Town Hall(Image: Copyright Unknown)<\/p>\n
A service described as being better than anything on Tripadvisor may soon be cut as cash-strapped Wirral<\/a> Council looks to balance the book<\/a>s. One councillor compared the situation to being stuck \u201cbetween a rock and a hard place.\u201d<\/p>\n Wirral councillors at a health committee on October 14 agreed a move towards stopping the delivery of the \u00a3843,955 AbleMe service<\/a> from March 2026 due to the local authority\u2019s difficult financial position and uncertainties around funding. The move would put a number of jobs at risk and talks will begin with unions ahead of a final decision in January.<\/a><\/p>\n The AbleMe service provides support to help people live independently, stay active, and age well. It is used to support people coming home from hospital or needing help and the aim is that by doing this, it would avoid further pressure on wider social care and health services.<\/p>\n In its first year, 268 people accessed the service with 88% of people remaining independent three months after the service ended. This led to drops in care packages being needed and people going into care homes.<\/p>\n However the service was funded through money given to the council by the government. It is reviewed every year so future funding is unknown and because of the council\u2019s financial position, cuts may need to be made.<\/a><\/p>\n A council report said: \u201cThere is a risk of not acting and making decisions that support the council in being able to maintain sustainable services and budgets to deliver statutory services.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the case of adult social care, the council faces significant demand beyond its resources and therefore must ensure that it is delivering services that offer a return on investment and are value for money.\u201d<\/p>\n At the meeting on October 14, health director Sayyed Osman said the council was seeing a \u00a38.6m overspend in adult social care<\/a>, an issue faced by many councils across the country. This is on top of a \u00a310.9m savings target, of which around \u00a37m is on track to be delivered.<\/p>\n Before their unanimous decision to look at cutting the service, councillors heard from Unison, the union representing workers affected by the cuts in the audience. David Jones, the branch secretary for Wirral, said staff had not known their jobs were temporary and wanted them to be involved in the process.<\/p>\n He said staff were unaware a review of the service was taking place and pointed to the positive feedback for the service. 97% of users surveyed \u201creported increased confidence in maintaining their independence with support\u201d and satisfaction in the service was 4.9 out of 5.<\/p>\n Mr Jones added: \u201cI\u2019ve not seen anything like that on Tripadvisor or any site I\u2019ve ever gone on. It\u2019s absolutely outstanding.\u201d<\/p>\n During the debate, councillors raised issues around a lack of communication with staff, in particular the fact many of them said they had no idea their job was temporary or their jobs were at risk until the council published a report a week ago.<\/p>\n Cllr Graeme Cooper, who chairs the committee, said: \u201cIf we had the budget and resources to do everything, I would not be making judgements like this. We\u2019d be going down a different road.\u201d<\/p>\n He said he wanted to sit down with Unison and praised service staff for their work, adding: \u201cIt\u2019s a very difficult decision and I hope that we do justice to the staff who are here tonight.\u201d He thanked officers for their work as \u201cthere were no easy answers to this.\u201d<\/p>\n In response to questions from councillors, Mr Osman said they would look to support staff at risk of redundancy but the council had to balance the books as there was not enough funding to meet demand, adding: \u201cThis is a dilemma, not just for Wirral Council<\/a> but for every single local authority that delivers adult social care.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The council faces a tough situation going into next yearWallasey Town Hall(Image: Copyright Unknown) A service described as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":500035,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8815],"tags":[748,393,4884,179,285,16,15,8881,9313],"class_list":{"0":"post-500034","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-liverpool","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-liverpool","12":"tag-politics","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom","15":"tag-wirral","16":"tag-wirral-council"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115375166333623598","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500034","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=500034"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500034\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/500035"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=500034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=500034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=500034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}