Gran slams council over charity cuts
A furious grandmother this week slammed the council after a social care charity pulled out of services.
Barbara Mulligan’s grandson John suffers from three learning disabilities.
The 23- year- old had been relying on the Richmond Fellowship to get him from his home in Girvan to Centrestage in Kilmarnock for his weekly music class.
But that has stopped since the fellowship’s Ayr service closed down last week.
Barbara blamed the council for its cosure, claiming they cut funding to the service.
But the council denied that, insisting that they had offered to continue their contract with the charity.
Barbara, 76, said: “John stays with me in Girvan and he depends on Richmond to take him to Centrestage on a Friday night.
“They always meet him in Ayr and support him on the way there and back, making sure he gets on the bus back home.
“He loves going to the gospel classes and he loves the staff. He’s been going there since he was 14.
“But the Richmond won’t be able to do that any more because the council don’t want to fund it and they say another service will take over but not until August 23.”
John can turn his hand to the drums, guitar and keyboard and enjoys singing and dancing too.
He suffers from reflex anoxic seizures, tourette syndrome and has autism.
Barbara said he would be distraught if he was to miss his Friday class.
She suffers from multiple sclerosis so would struggle to take John herself.
And she said they were only given two weeks notice of the service’s closure.
She added: “They have shows about three times a year so he can’t miss that class. He would be devastated.
“Either that or I would need to take him up but I’ve got MS so it would be a handful for me to take him.
“What I’m angry at is the council spent all that money putting fire doors and alarms in at the Ayr flats when they knew they were going to be knocking them down.
“Why spend money on that when they could have sent money elsewhere and kept the Richmond open?”
In July the Post revealed that South Ayrshire Council had shelled out £ 1million to protect the Ayr high- rises from fire just before deciding to tear them down.
But the council insist that the closure of the Richmond Fellowship has nothing to do with them.
They insist they offered to renew their contract but the fellowship say that offer fell below their cost of delivering services.
The council said all service users and staff will be transferred across to a new provider.
A spokesperson said: “Last year the council awarded new contracts to social care providers to support individuals with learning disabilities and mental health issues.
“The Richmond Fellowship tendered for this work on the basis of a known hourly rate and were awarded new contracts.
“The Richmond Fellowship then advised the health and social care partnership that it intended to withdraw from all but a few of the services it currently provides.
“Their decision affects 37 HSCP clients. However, a new provider is in place and staff from the Richmond Fellowship will transfer over to this new employer.
“It ’ s disappointing that the Richmond Fellowship took this decision after months of negotiation but service users are still getting the support they need.”
A Richmond Fe l l owship spokesperson said: “It is with regret that we could not find a solution to a long- standing issue with the fee rate in South Ayrshire. Unfortunately the fee rate offered does not cover the cost of delivering services.”