Eleventh-hour talks as National Autistic Society and unitary council meet to save Northamptonshire disabled day and residential services

Hopes of saving charity-run services provided by the National Autistic Society (NAS) and paid for by council social care budgets have been kept alive with a promised meeting.

Parents of adults with severe autism who use the under-threat Diamond Centre in Irthlingborough met with NAS bosses earlier this week.

The SID group – Save Irthlingborough Daycentre – is campaigning for it to remain open after they were given seven weeks notice that the lifeline service would be shutting.

With the November 3 deadline less than three weeks away, the NAS are due to meet with council chiefs, as well as SID representatives, next week.

Steven Rose, interim managing director (adult services) at the NAS, said: “We would like to thank the families who met with us on Wednesday (October 11), and we are acutely aware how difficult this situation is for them.

“Although our previous meetings with the councils (North Northants Council (NNC) and West Northants Council (WNC)) have unfortunately proved fruitless, we are delighted that representatives have asked to meet again and we are looking forward to productive conversations with them.”

On September 13, families received letters from the NAS announcing the ‘last resort’ closure and explaining that ‘chronic underfunding’ by central government had led to a lack of additional funding to local authorities – NNC and WNC.

SID founder member Diane Jones, from Wellingborough, has been relying on the care provided by the Diamond Centre for seven years for her 25-year-old son Elliott.

Following the emergency meeting with Mr Rose she said: “It went as well as we hoped. We are still desperate for the centre to remain open and protect the lives of the 25 people at the Diamond Centre and the other 13 in residential care. That’s 38 very, very vulnerable people.”

NNC and WNC had been contacted in January by the NAS requesting ‘significant fee uplifts’. Both councils said they had tried to on multiple occasions engage with NAS to resolve the funding issue but found the charity ‘unwilling to provide information needed to assess the request for an increase in fees’.

A joint statemen from Cllr Helen Harrison, NNC’s executive member for adults, health and wellbeing, and Cllr Matt Golby, WNC’s cabinet member for adult social care and public health, said: “While both councils are committed to providing quality services and ensure a fairness in payments, it is also vital we are mindful of our responsibility on spending the public money and creating a fair pay balance across all providers. The requested uplift was far greater than what has been agreed with other providers and was not financially viable.”

They added they were doing ‘everything’ they could to find a solution and ‘to minimise any disruption to the lives of their loved ones’.”

The NAS wrote to both local authorities in January 2023 outlining the ‘huge challenges’ facing them as a provider of social care, stating the additional funding required to continue delivering care to those they support.  Further letters followed in June 2023 and July 2023.

Following further contact from the charity at the end of August 2023, meetings and discussions with the councils took place during early September 2023 but ‘no agreement could be reached’. They then took the decision to serve notice on contracts.

Since the closure announcement, Mrs Jones has been helped by her MP Peter Bone, his as his executive secretary Jennie Bone. They have been working with Tom Pursglove, MP for Corby, in which constituency the Diamond Centre is located.

The MPs held a joint meeting to discuss the SID campaign with parents.

Mrs Jones said: “Whatever happens, we’re not going to give up fighting. The amount they are talking about it’s the national debt – it’s not millions – but it’s the 38 people’s lives and their parents. It’s going to cost a lot more when parents break down and can’t cope.”

Mr Pursglove, who is Minister of State for Disabled People, Health and Work, said: “The National Autistic Society's decision to close Diamond Daycentre, with virtually no notice and without meaningful dialogue with the local authority to identify an alternative way forward, is completely unacceptable.

"Having met the families of affected service users at the weekend, who are understandably very distressed by this news, I have called on the charity to suspend the closure for six months and to now engage in constructive dialogue with North Northamptonshire Council - who I know stand ready to engage meaningfully in the spirit we would all wish to see - to ensure continuity of provision for the vulnerable autistic people with complex needs who rely on this service.

"I hope they will agree to do so, and I shall continue to press for such engagement to happen as a matter of urgency, with a view to that hopefully bringing about a better way forward.”

Diane Jones added: “I would like to thank Jennie and Peter Bone for all their work. They have been very helpful.”

NNC has been contacted for a comment.