Council to take over care staff contracts
STAFF working at a Widnes residential home which was threatened with potential closure last year are due to be transferred to Halton Borough Council (HBC).
The executive board will be updated on Madeline McKenna Court in Hough Green.
Your Housing Group (YHG) announced proposals last year to decommission and shut the home on Caxton Close off Haddon Drive.
A consultation was launched after the firm unsuccessfully managed to sell the facility on ‘numerous occasions’.
YHG later accepted an offer in principle from the council last June for the 23-bed residential care home, before another buyer came in and was being considered as the new owners.
But the site’s sale reverted back to HBC earlier this year.
Permission is now being sought from the executive board to absorb the 23 Madeline McKenna staff into the council’s management.
The report said: “This will ensure that services will be delivered that represent value for money and maintain quality provision and deliver any remodelling that would be required.
“Initially it was proposed that HBC would purchase the Madeline McKenna property outright and enter into partnership with an alternative provider to manage and deliver the vice.
“The preferred provider has since stated that they are no longer in a position to enter into a partnership with HBC in order to deliver the service.
“Timescales are very tight and the implications of this decision are that if the staff are not absorbed into our current structures the viability of the project will be compromised.”
If agreed, the report said the transfer of the Madeline McKenna building and staff will be complete by the start of September.
However, the document said the business will ‘continue to run’ at a financial loss of between £60,000 ser- ● and £80,000 a year.
There is also a risk Madeline McKenna Court will run at least 12 months and up to two years.
The report added: “This option does hold potential risks in the short term, however it would secure the bed base within the care home sector in the borough in the long term.”
The executive board has been recommended to approve transferring the Madeline McKenna staff to HBC on their existing terms and conditions at a meeting on Thursday, July 20.