BRINGING hot meals to housebound, disabled and elderly people is costing taxpayers more than £20,000 extra each year due to a volunteer shortfall.

A lack of willing helpers means taxis are being used to deliver meals and plug the food delivery gap.

More than 200,000 Meals on Wheels are provided across the county each year to help people who are unable to cook for themselves to stay in their own homes for longer - around 40,000 are served up in South Lakeland alone.

Each two-course meal - provided by Cumbria County Council's contractor Cumbria Contract Services - costs up to £3.66 to make and deliver and costs the buyer around £1.35 per meal.

Volunteers, including members of the Women's Royal Voluntary Service (WRVS), usually ferry around the food.

But a report to Cumbria County Council's Health and Care Scrutiny panel shows the county's army of 1,602 meal volunteers just is not enough.

For example, South Lakeland has 285 non-WRVS volunteers while Carlisle has only nine and Copeland 33.

The report by CCS interim director Clive Pickering said: "There are frequent shortfalls of volunteers able to deliver the meals, creating logistical challenges. This is particularly so in Allerdale, Barrow and Copeland and Eden districts where up to 18 rounds in a particular district could be without the normal delivery volunteer at any one time.

"This has a consequential cost to CCS of around £20,000 per annum, as well as the necessity for our employees to deputise at short notice to ensure continuity of service."

Meanwhile, the WRVS has become a profit-making organisation. It charges CCS around £30,000 per year for the use of its services, bringing the total cost of providing Meals on Wheels to more than £830,000 per year.

May 15, 2003 10:30