Launching Our Voices Matter: Protecting Prevention and Strengthening Community Capacity in Argyll and Bute
Cuts to social care are not the answer.
This week we formally launch Our Voices Matter — a third sector-led campaign to protect preventative services, defend community capacity and promote a sustainable future for health and social care in Argyll and Bute.
This campaign arises in response to the proposed 2026/27 Health and Social Care Partnership savings, which include reductions affecting carers’ centres, community transport, responder services, day provision and wider third sector contracts and grants. These are not marginal services. They are the services that keep people safe at home, support unpaid carers, reduce loneliness and isolation, prevent hospital admissions and delay escalation of need. They are central to a sustainable system.
What can you do? Complete the online questionnaire to let the HSCP know your views about the cuts. Hurry you only have until 12th March 2026!
We recognise the scale of the financial challenge facing the Integration Joint Board. An opening budget gap of over £16 million is serious and requires action. However, we are deeply concerned that the current direction of travel places a disproportionate burden on prevention and community-based provision — the very parts of the system that reduce demand and control long-term costs. Cutting prevention to meet short-term pressures risks increasing delayed discharge, higher-cost care packages and reliance on unpaid carers, while widening inequalities across our rural and island communities.
At the same time, significant additional cost pressures have emerged linked to acute Service Level Agreements with NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde. Before community capacity is reduced, there must be full transparency and due diligence regarding these arrangements and a clear commitment to whole-system reform rather than incremental retrenchment. Financial recovery must align with national commitments to public service reform, human rights and tackling health inequalities.
Our Voices Matter is not a campaign of opposition for its own sake. It is a campaign for a different approach.
We believe there is another way.
Argyll and Bute can move towards a genuinely prevention-focused system, grounded in partnership between statutory services, the third sector, carers and communities. We have already submitted detailed proposals to the Joint Strategic Plan outlining how collaborative commissioning, cross-sector transformation and long-term investment in community provision can deliver sustainable change. Transformation must examine pathways from community to hospital and back again — not simply remove the very supports that prevent crisis.
This campaign is led by a steering group comprising:
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Takki Sulaiman, Chief Executive, Argyll and Bute Third Sector Interface
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Lesley Sweetman, Social Policy Lead, Argyll and Bute Citizens Advice Bureau
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Becs Barker, Operations Manager, Community Contacts
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Gary Christie, Policy and Campaigns Manager, Poverty Alliance
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Becky Hothersall, Development Officer, Poverty Alliance
Together, we represent organisations working daily with carers, disabled people, families, older residents and those experiencing poverty across Argyll and Bute. We have a duty to speak when proposals risk causing disproportionate harm to the most vulnerable in our communities.
Over the coming weeks, www.ourvoicesmatter.scot will host further information about the campaign, including:
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Detailed briefings on the budget proposals
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Case studies demonstrating the impact of preventative services
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Our proposals for a different, prevention-led approach
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Information on how you can support the campaign
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Updates and opportunities to receive further information
This is a pivotal moment for health and social care in Argyll and Bute. Decisions taken now will shape services for years to come.
If we want a system that is financially sustainable, fair and focused on keeping people well in their communities, then prevention must be protected — not pared back.
There is another way.
And together, our voices matter.