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11/10/09 : Naz says Tory West Berkshire doesn't even know how many old and disabled people they've refused to help!:
In what Labour prospective candidate Naz Sarkar for Reading West calls a "chilling foretaste of David Cameron's smaller state", Tory West Berkshire Council has responded to a Freedom of Information request asking how many elderly residents, and those with physical disabilities, learning disabilities or mental health problems, in the constituency have been assessed as only being in substantial or greater moderate need and hence deemed ineligible for care since the Council revised its eligibility criteria in 2003 by saying not just that it was too expensive to do so but that basically they did not keep that information on file.
In a formal response, the Council says "we do not record the level of need if someone does not get past initial screening at the contact centre" which means, Naz says, that West Berkshire Tories operate much tighter eligibility criteria than Reading but don't know how many people they have refused to help.
At the latest count, he says, there are about 1500 people living in the Reading part of the Reading West constituency who are being helped by Reading's Labour Council but who would be denied help in West Berkshire - and West Berkshire wouldn't even record that denial.
"David Cameron talked last week of the harm done by a big state. The difference between Reading and West Berkshire highlights that the choice at the General Election is between a so-called big state that helps elderly and disabled people in need and a Cameron-style small state that forgets even their names."
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