Devon County Council today welcomed comments from the Director of Age Concern Exeter about council tax and potential cutbacks in council funding on the Good Morning Devon programme on Radio Devon this morning.

The Director of Age Concern Martin Rogers, spoke with reporter Jo Bishop, explaining their concern for the 200 frail and elderly people his organisation looks after each week, and the impact of any cutback in funding for them.

Age Concern Exeter receives £240,000 - a third of their overall funding - from Devon County Council to provide day care for Exeter's frail and elderly, a service that he says is vital to older people, and will suffer if funding is cut.

'Low key basic services that keep people ticking along, that allow them to engage a little bit with the outside world, to see a friendly face, to feel as though they've got something to get up for in the morning, very often it's those things that are perhaps not the sexiest most exciting things in the world that get squeezed.' said Mr Rogers.

'We very much understand the concern older people have, local people in Devon have, about rises in council tax and how hard they find it to fund those rises, but we also understand that if we have a very low council tax and if the government has made a poor settlement to Devon, which it has - it's the lowest settlement of any shire county in the country - then that's going to affect much needed services. So somehow we have to balance out the amount that's pulled in through council tax and the provision of much needed services.'

Cllr John Clatworthy, Devon's Executive Member for social services for adults said: 'Mr Rogers paints a very fair picture of what our real situation is in Devon. I welcome his comments and share his concerns about the threat of funding cuts and what that might mean to his organisation, and others similar, and the people they care for.

'An important part of our strategy in Social Services is to provide financial support for services such as those provided by Age Concern because they are a real life blood for people. They make an enormous difference to the quality of life for frail and disabled people. We can not provide these services unless we have the money to do so. There is a straight choice between levels of funding and the amount and quality of service that people can enjoy.

'What can be said with conviction is that we will do everything we can to protect council services for the frail and elderly.'

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