CITY councillors last night approved a major overhaul in adult social care for York.

City of York Council’s ruling executive met to discuss the proposals, which see the social care departments put a much heavier focus on early intervention and prevention, and allow people to manage their own care rather than letting the council take charge of every aspect of their support.

The authority’s director of adult social care Martin Farran said a wholesale change in approach was vital to make sure the authority could keep fulfilling its duties to older people, and keep standards high, despite funding cuts and changing demographics.

He added: “There are no more resources, but we are going to have to meet more needs.”

York man Clive Millard had spoken at the beginning of the meeting to object to the deal.

He said the council should be trying to support vulnerable people, not delivering Tory cuts in the city.

There were also objections to the use of outside consultants to make the changes, with Unison’s Andrea Dudding telling the councillors to use current council workers’ expertise and skills instead.

However, councillors agreed to release £360,000 to be used to find an outside agency, backfill council positions and train staff.

Cllr Nigel Ayre said that helping more people at a much lower level of need was “entirely what we should be doing”.

At the same meeting, a deal was agreed to sell the former old people’s home Grove House to Norstar Real Estates for £1.6 million, for conversion into 29 flats.

Cllr Janet Looker said people in her Guildhall ward were relieved the building would not be demolished and rebuilt, saving them from months of disruption.

However, assistant director of property Tracey Carter said that should the Norstar deal fall through, a deal would be offered to the next highest bidder. Background papers show that bidder offered £1.55 million as part of a plan to build student accommodation on the site.

The proceeds from the sale go into the wider overhaul of older people’s accommodation, and Ms Carter said bids had been rated simply on the money they could bring in for that project.