Scotland’s Minister for Social Care has sought to assure a parliamentary committee that a more phased and careful approach to the development of the national care service has not made government plans for the sector any less bold or transformational.

Holyrood’s Finance and Public Administration Committee heard this week that the ongoing codesign process may mean the National Care Service (NCS) is “less of a big bang”, but that the government is in a much better position with its plans than this time last year.

Minister for Social Care Maree Todd MSP told the committee that this slower approach will allow for more regular and transparent updates on the plans throughout the process.

However, Finance Committee members raised concerns that a lot of money has already been spent on the programme that cannot be fully scrutinised.

 

NCS programme spending so far

An update on NCS programme expenditure was received by the committee in the summer – but convener Kenneth Gibson MSP pointed out to the minister this shows little more than just the top line, and that his colleagues will need more detail to understand where the money is actually going.

More than £1.026m was spent on NCS ‘engagement’ in the last financial year, according to government figures – £551,000 more than was originally envisaged.

The costs for ‘staff’ also jumped from £1.387m to £9.8m between 2021/22 and 2022/23.

Government officials explained this was largely as a result of training civil servants in the use of co-design.

Maree Todd MSP said there were additional challenges in breaking down spending as work is going on right now to improve social care, concurrently with work to create conditions for the NCS:

“With the exception of a very small, dedicated Bill management team, the majority of officials working on the NCS are involved in teams combining policy development, co design and implementation cross a range of areas.

“These activities will inform development of the bill, but also the more detailed development for the NCS which will be set out in secondary guidance and also improvements that feed into current services.”

 

Scrutiny

The minister insisted the government is “not trying to hide anything” from the committee and is eager to enhance its scrutiny to improve the Bill.

Ms Todd confirmed that updated financial costings of the plans will be sent to the committee at least four weeks ahead of a stage one debate due to take place in the New Year, after previously refusing MSPs’ request for a new financial memorandum.

The Finance and Public Administration Committee had raised significant concerns around the original financial memorandum to the NCS Bill, with a lack of detail, they said, “frustrating” the parliamentary scrutiny process.

Convener Kenneth Gibson told Ms Todd this week that the government “is now looking at something radically different from what it was a year ago”.

A debate and vote in parliament on the NCS Bill was originally planned to take place in March 2023.

This has now seen three delays – most recently until January 2024.

The government has since embarked on a ‘codesign and engagement process’ across Scotland, and scrapped its plans to transfer social care staff from councils.

A new agreement signed by the NHS and local authority organisation COSLA will now mean they will share with Ministers accountability for people’s care in the National Care Service.

Maree Todd MSP this week told the committee that this greater engagement means the government is now in “a much healthier place” than when the plans were initially introduced.

 

Read More: NCS civil service costs head for £10 million; National care service delayed again; Ministers refuse to update NCS costings;

 

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