BOLTON'S new adult social care company is set to commence trading tomorrow.

Bolton Care and Support Ltd is a not-for-profit company that will aim to provide a range of care and support for adults in the community including supported living services, disability day care, older adults’ day care, extra care services and the shared lives service.

The council announced plans to change the way it handles adult social care in January in a bid to save £3.5 million per year.

The idea is to transfer all of the adult services currently undertaken by the authority to the new not for profit, public company in a bid to protect social care services in the borough.

The savings are being made through staff voluntary redundancies and retirements as well as some switching to a new, lesser pay and conditions package after accepting a lump sum of cash.

The council said it could not break-down how many staff had chosen these options — but said most of the 400 staff have transferred to the new company.

At the helm of Bolton Care and Support Ltd is new Chief Executive, John Livesey, formerly the acting director of children’s and adult services at Bolton Council.

He said: “I’m incredibly excited about the opportunity to lead this new development for Bolton and am looking forward to building Bolton Care and Support into a successful and high quality provider of social care for local people.

“Our first priority is the safe transfer of services from the council to the company, and ensuring that the services continue to provide the high quality of care that they currently deliver. We have a great workforce who does a fantastic job in caring for our residents and we are working together to support them into the company.”

Mr Livesey said the company will be “socially responsible”, will not use zero-hours contacts and will pay all staff more than the National Living Wage — which is £7.20 per hour.

He also said his team had been “overwhelmed” by the number of people wanting to come and work for the new company.

Bolton Care and Support Ltd is wholly owned by the council. The Chief Executive will report to a steering committee of local councillors, whose chairman is the Deputy Leader of the Council, Cllr Linda Thomas.

Cllr Thomas, said: “Creating this company has provided an alternative to further outsourcing of social care services.

“Bolton Council is committed to providing high quality, life-enhancing care and we think that Bolton Care and Support provides an ideal opportunity for us to achieve this.

“We want the company to be innovative and to grow by developing high quality, value for money services that will meet the needs of the changing health and social care economy in Greater Manchester and beyond.”

The company headquarters will be at Thicketford House in Tonge Moor and services will be delivered throughout Bolton.