Last night at our Council’s Overview and Scrutiny meeting, we discussed Tory plans to charge residents £8 for a membership card to use our day centres. We called-in this Tory Executive decision to check whether they have properly thought through the implications of such a scheme.

Firstly, the day centres are public facilities for residents to use.

Secondly, most residents who use them tend to be on the lower economic bracket such as pensioners, young people and various charitable groups.

To start trying to generate extra income from services such as these may put off some not to use them altogether, particularly if this charge is increased in the future.

Cllr Ian Johnson and I questioned the Portfolio Holder, Cllr Melanie Whitehand, and Council Leader, Cllr John Kingsbury, where they obtained their evidence from and how they conducted their consultation with affected groups. We also asked them if volunteers would have to pay and whether they had thought that the administration costs of such a scheme could outweigh the benefits of extra income generation.

Their answers were:

1. Everyone who uses the day centres will have to apply for membership cards, including volunteers who help out at the centres. (I think that it is wrong that volunteers should have to have a card)

2. Thankfully user groups such as Scouts will not have to carry membership cards to hire facilities.

3. Cllr John Kingsbury hinted that residents who use chiropody and bath facilities may not be required to carry membership cards. (I certainly hope not. An essential health and well-being service should not be charged.)

4. Residents who buy meals at the day centres will have to have membership cards. However, this does exclude minor catering such as “just going for a coffee”. Cllr Whitehand did say that having such a membership scheme would mean that those on means-tested benefits would not be known as they have to carry different “coloured tickets”. (But the point is that those on means-tested benefits will be charged – which is wrong).

5. Spurious conversations have taken place with “some user groups and day centre staff” stating that they approve of the scheme, without explicitly stating who. They have also clearly not formally consulted with day centre users as Cllr Whitehand could only admit to having “casual conversations” with some users about the scheme. 

6. We also received no straight answers about the administrative costs of the scheme. My fear is that take-up will be reduced by having the membership card.

7. If the membership card, as Cllr Melanie Whitehand alleges, is designed to ensure that we know which Woking residents use them as opposed to non-residents, why are we charging both the same rate? It is not a reason to introduce such a scheme.

We requested that a supporting document is put to Full Council on Thursday 1 October stating how the Tories plan to implement this. What is clear is that they have not thought some of these issues all the way through. If we had not called this in, I doubt they would have.