Charity directors insist ‘Community Care is safe’…

Individuals receiving Community Care allowances will soon receive a letter from the charity’s directors reassuring them that the current payments will remain unchanged, the Directors of Gibraltar Community Care Limited said in a statement.

The letter, entitled ‘Community Care is safe’, will be sent to all recipients of the Household Cost Allowance, also known as the “three-monthly cheque”, and existing recipients under the charity’s Community Officer Scheme.

The directors note “confusion” amongst some recipients of the Household Cost Allowance arising from the changes the directors are considering making in respect of Community Officers to prevent “abuse” that they have detected.

They insisted there will be no change to the Household Cost Allowance, or indeed to existing participants in the Community Officer Scheme.

“What the directors also say in their letter is that they are considering changing the criteria for future applicants for the Community Officer scheme because of the abuse they have detected,” the charity said in a statement.

“They further confirm that they will make future announcements about those changes in due course.”

“Finally, the directors say that they have written their letter to all existing beneficiaries of the charity to fully and completely reassure them that as existing recipients of the Household Cost Allowance or as existing beneficiary of the Community Officer scheme, their payments of the will not change or be affected negatively in any way whatsoever, and will be paid as usual on time without any interruption and that there is no issue whatsoever to be concerned about.”

“The directors have provided for any queries or questions to be referred to them by mail or email and they have thanked recipients of their letter for taking the time to read it to get themselves fully informed and thereby avoid becoming inadvertently concerned, when there is no reason to be worried at all about the continuation of payments.”