Seòmar agus comataidhean

Thank you. More detail will be helpful, as I think that we will come back to the matter as we make progress.

On a more technical point, the bill does not outline exactly how the transfer of staff will happen and for whom transferred staff will work. We know that NHS staff will remain NHS staff, but we are less clear about, for example, social care staff, who are in the employ of local authorities. Is there a sense that, without that detail, it is harder to look at how fair work practices can be implemented, particularly given the differing pay scales and terms and conditions?

We are trying to consider the bill with regard to the detail that is outlined in the framework. However, on the point that you have made, Councillor Kelly, about viability, and in relation to the amendments that you have mentioned, are your concerns based around, for example, the fact that there is no definition of the geographic spread of a care board—that care boards would not necessarily reflect what we have currently in the integration joint boards, which would have a potential impact on the geography of people’s local authority, as they understand it, and on what their local authority would be responsible for?

My other question is more for Councillor Kelly. This morning, we have heard you, as COSLA’s representative, express concern about a wholesale transfer of services from local government to the national care service. I have heard it described by people as councils essentially becoming providers in a larger framework. Do you think that there is a principle at stake here for local government?

In its written submission, the Law Society of Scotland said that it is concerned about a lack of evidence for a national care service, which raises the

“question whether the centralisation of what”

is currently delivered locally

“can be justified in terms of the European Charter of Local Self-Government”.

I bring that up, because of the shared commitment by the Government and COSLA to incorporate that charter. Do you think that principle is at stake, too?

Eddie, will you give your view? You speak from the officer level. Does SOLACE recognise much of what the politicians and leaders of COSLA have said? Will you share your concerns?

Thanks, convener. I appreciate that we are dipping into different themes, but that is the nature of the discussion.

Following on from Gillian Mackay’s point about trying to achieve fair work principles and improve terms and conditions, I have a question about recruitment. We know that there is a huge challenge in social care recruitment. I think that there is a suggestion that, through the bill and the national care service, action can be taken to look at recruitment on a more national basis, or through a national campaign.

Councillor Kelly, do you sense that we need a national care service to do that, or would you rather see interaction between COSLA and the Government on national work on recruitment? Has anything happened between the Government and COSLA on that? What has the Government done?

I will return briefly to co-production. For some people, it seems to be new, but my sense is that it has existed for a long time. We were talking about how integration has worked. Integration is still young—it is not yet 10 years old. Given that Eddie Fraser was responsible for delivering services through a health and social care partnership and that he is now a council chief executive, I ask for his view on what co-production has done in that space. When I sat on an IJB—which was not yesterday—it had carer and patient representatives and people from the staff side; co-production ran throughout how things were discussed. I also ask Jackie Buchanan to give her sense of how the structure works and to comment on any other bits.

Thank you.

I have a couple of questions for Isla Davie that follow on from that point. First, just for clarification, do you have concerns about the powers that are transferred to ministers as outlined in schedule 4, in terms of what ministers will be able to do under secondary legislation? Secondly, is there also an issue with the delay in getting to the secondary legislation, which might mean that we do not achieve the stated aims?

I have a brief question for Eddie Fraser, after which I will ask a final question.

At the end of the previous section of questions, Eddie, you outlined the alternative approach of local and national Government working together to try to find national standards and to implement them in a national care service. Do you see any parallels with what happened in 2017 when proposed education legislation sought to make ministers responsible for improvements in education through regional improvement collaboratives? That legislation was taken away, and there was collaboration and co-design with all the partners to create what we now recognise as RICs, which are run regionally but have local accountability and committees. Might we want to learn from that process here?

That would be helpful. Is it fair to say that, as your submission suggests, you question whether the centralisation agenda can be justified?