Vince Cable

Vincent Cable MP has asked the Social Services department to investigate what he described as a "serious rip off" in a case where carers of an 87 year old lady in East Twickenham, belonging to the agency Care UK, provided consistently very poor care and falsified time sheets to pretend they were working when they were not.

This incident occurs at a time when the Council is pressing ahead with redundancies of in-house domiciliary staff. Vincent Cable said "I have heard many reports of this kind about the way the agencies operate that provide services to the Council. But, in this case, the lady's niece kept a detailed record and has been able to demonstrate that the Council is being systematically overcharged. I don't know at what level in the company these practices were being carried out, or condoned.

"What I find quite outrageous is that not only is the Council laying off high quality in-house staff but is handing over their jobs to agencies that are not properly supervised and seem to be taking the Council for a ride. A few weeks ago I drew attention to the worrying level of complaints about domiciliary care staff, especially from the private agencies, and this incident underlines how serious the problem is."