Suffolk stalls sale decision amid outsourcing halt

Public resistance to proposals from Suffolk council which had sought to either sell off or considerably reduce use of 16 in-house residential care homes has forced the authority to rethink a strategy under which it had hoped to shave around £3-4m per year from its adult social care spend. Meanwhile on a larger scale, however, the resignation of council leader Jeremy Pembroke last month has put on hold the authority’s controversial plans to reinvent itself as a commissioner and not provider of almost all its state services (CCMN November 2010).