Barnet Home Meals Service

The consultation has now closed.

We would like to thank everyone who took part in the Home Meals Service consultation.

The feedback we received was considered by Barnet Council’s Adults and Safeguarding Committee on 12 November 2015.

You can see how we acted on the results here, under ‘We asked, You said, We did’. We also wrote to all our Home Meals users to inform them of the final decision and next steps.

You can read the full findings from the consultation in this report.

Consultation Overview

The Council continues to face the challenge of coping with declining funding from Central Government while the demand for our services grows, particularly for adult and children’s services. The council faces a significant budget gap of £98.4m over the next five years and meeting this gap will involve some difficult decisions about how the council spends its money.

As part of this financial challenge, over the last few months, the council has been reviewing the existing home meals service and looking at how else we can meet people’s nutritional needs through the use of other alternative services available in the community and by supporting people to live independently. This review has considered how we can promote choice, independence and value for money for you and the council.

In Barnet, we are proposing to no longer provide a home meals delivery service from April 2016.

In exceptional circumstances, Barnet Council will consider support for meals, for example, where service users do not have the means to source or cook a meal.

We will be visiting everyone currently receiving the service to explain the proposal and to talk through which other options would best suit them should the proposal be agreed - for example lunch clubs or other catering companies.

Under the new universal deferred payments scheme there will be statutory guidance and a national eligibility criteria which all councils will be expected to follow.
It is also expected that under the new scheme more people will qualify for a deferred payment. This means that more people may choose not to sell their home to pay for residential or nursing care. In addition to the national eligibility criteria, there are also a number of other changes, for example allowing councils to recover the full costs involved in providing the scheme by charging interest and administrative fees.

Why We Are Consulting

We are keen to hear everyone’s views on our proposal or suggestions of how else we can support people to get a meal in Barnet. Your views are important to us and will help us to make the right decisions.

To find out more about our proposals, please take the time to read our factsheet,

You can also find out more about the current Home Meals Service in Barnet here.

Give Us Your Views

Please take the time to read our factsheet and then give us your views on our proposals by completing the online questionnaire.

Related

Meals at Home webpage

Barnet Home Meals Service Factsheet