The Bill establishes the National Care Service.
The Bill allows Scottish Ministers to transfer social care responsibility from local authorities to a new, national service. This could include adult and children’s services, as well as areas such as justice social work.
The Scottish Government would need to consult with the public before transferring responsibilities relating to children’s services or justice social work to the new service.
Scottish Ministers are also able to transfer healthcare functions from the NHS and health boards to the National Care Service.
Care or health services that are transferred to the new service could be delivered nationally or locally. New bodies called “care boards” would be responsible for delivering care locally.
As well as establishing the National Care Service, the Bill makes other changes including:
As with all Bills, the Finance and Public Administration Committee invites written evidence on the estimated financial implications of the Bill as set out in its accompanying Financial Memorandum (FM).
Read the FM for this Bill: Financial Memorandum.
The call for views on the Bill's FM closed on 2 September 2022.
A total of 215 submissions were received to the call for views. Read the submissions received on Citizen Space (in each response, please scroll down to the section "Questions about the Financial Memorandum" to read the views on the Bill's FM).
The Scottish Parliament Information Centre (SPICe) produced a summary of the written submissions received. You can read the summary at the following link:
SPICe Summary of Written Submissions (208KB, pdf) posted 25 October 2022
The following submissions were also received via email and are published below:
Submission from CIPFA (114KB, pdf) posted 28 September 2022
Submission from COSLA (214KB, pdf) posted 28 September 2022
Submission from Social Work Scotland (2MB, pdf) posted 19 October 2022
Note on Accessibility:
We aim to make sure all correspondence is published as a fully accessible pdf. However, when correspondence documents are sent to us by an external organisation this is not always possible. If you need this correspondence provided in an alternative format, please contact the clerk of the committee. Further information can be found in our accessibility statement.
Letter from the Minister for Mental Wellbeing and Social Care to the Convener of 30 June 2022 (211KB, pdf) posted 07 July 2022
Letter from the Minister for Mental Wellbeing and Social Care to the Convener of 28 February 2023
Letter from the Convener to the Minister for Mental Wellbeing and Social Care of 9 March 2023
Letter from the Minister for Mental Wellbeing and Social Care to the Convener of 23 March 2023
Letter from the Minister for Social Care, Mental Wellbeing and Sport to the Convener of 9 May 2023
Letter from the Minister for Social Care, Mental Wellbeing and Sport to the Convener of 16 June 2023
Letter from the Convener to the Minister for Social Care, Mental Wellbeing and Sport of 30 June 2023
Letter from the Director of Social Work Scotland to the Convener of 23 January 2024
Letter from the Minister for Social Care, Mental Wellbeing and Sport of 20 March 2024
Note on Accessibility:
We aim to make sure all correspondence is published as a fully accessible pdf. However, when correspondence documents are sent to us by an external organisation this is not always possible. If you need this correspondence provided in an alternative format, please contact the clerk of the committee. Further information can be found in our accessibility statement.
The Committee took evidence on the following dates:
The Committee took evidence from the Minister for Social Care, Mental Wellbeing and Sport, Scottish Government.
Read the agenda, papers and Official Report (substantially verbatim transcript) for this meeting.
The Committee took evidence from Scottish Government officials.
Read the agenda, papers and Official Report (substantially verbatim transcript) for this meeting.
The Committee took evidence from the Minister for Social Care, Mental Wellbeing and Sport, Scottish Government.
Read the agenda, papers and Official Report (substantially verbatim transcript) for this meeting.
The Committee took evidence from the Minister for Mental Wellbeing and Social Care, Scottish Government.
Read the agenda, papers and Official Report (substantially verbatim transcript) for this meeting.
The Minister for Mental Wellbeing and Social Care wrote to the Committee on 10 November 2022 with follow-up information on issues raised during the meeting on 8 November 2022. Read the Minister's letter at:
Letter from Minister for Mental Wellbeing and Social Care to the Convener of 10 November 2022
The Chief Officer, Local Government Finance, COSLA wrote to the Committee on 15 November 2022 following the meeting on 8 November 2022. Read the letter at:
Letter from Chief Officer, Local Government Finance, COSLA to the Convener of 15 November 2022
The Committee took evidence from Audit Scotland, the Fraser of Allander Institute, the Health and Social Care Alliance Scotland (the ALLIANCE), and NHS Scotland.
Read the agenda, papers and Official Report (substantially verbatim transcript) for this meeting.
The Committee took evidence from:
Panel 1: Scottish Government officials;
Panel 2: COSLA, CIPFA Integrated Joint Boards Chief Finance Officer Section, and SOLACE Scotland.
Read the agenda, papers and Official Report (substantially verbatim transcript) for this meeting.
The Scottish Parliament Information Centre (SPICe) produced the following themes paper for this meeting:
SPICe themes paper for meeting on 25 October 2022 (260KB, pdf) posted 25 October 2022
The Committee's report on the FM for the Bill was published on 1 December 2022. Read the report here:
Report on the Financial Memorandum for the National Care Service (Scotland) Bill