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As I have outlined already, the establishment of the national care service will have an impact on community justice partners whether or not justice social work is included in the NCS and the national social work agency. That reflects the fact that many community justice partners rely on effective communication and collaboration with other partners across health and social care.

I canna reiterate enough that community justice partners are actively involved in the work that we are doing to inform a decision about justice social work. That work and their involvement with it will make it certain that the options appraisal will fully consider the implications and opportunities for improvements across community justice and justice social work. Before the establishment of a national care service, and whether justice social work is included in that service or not, we will continue to look to make improvements because we must get the linkages absolutely right.

There have been a number of calls for the National Care Service (Scotland) Bill, or elements of it, to be paused. However, as I said to the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee yesterday, many people want to see all this moving at pace. I have to strike the right balance with what we are doing, and I think that it is about right. Derek Feeley, the chair of the independent review into adult social care who recommended that we establish a national social work agency, has said that the work should move at pace. Many other stakeholders, particularly the voices of lived experience, want all this to have happened yesterday.

I understand some people’s feelings about the pace of change, but pausing the bill will not stop the work that we need to do to ensure that we get the best outcomes for people. As far as I am concerned, a national care service is the best way forward.

We have said that we will consult on the issues in question after the research and the options appraisal have been carried out and we have listened to stakeholders. We have committed to doing that.

I say to Ms Clark and to others on the committee that we did not suddenly pluck this out of the air and decide that all this should be in the national care service. We listened to the voices of people with lived experience and to their views and thinking on what they wanted the national care service to deliver.

You are right to say that some stakeholders have said that the evidence base for bringing criminal justice social work and children’s services into the national care service is not as great as the evidence base from the independent review of adult social care that Derek Feeley carried out and made recommendations on. However, in that review, Derek Feeley pointed out the importance of linkages. That is why we are conducting all the work that we are doing at the moment. We have not made a decision about whether children’s services will be in or out of the national care service because we want to have the evidence base and we want to listen to stakeholders.

I will give an example of how stakeholders are involved in informing that decision. Officials have established a reference group that meets regularly to inform and support the programme of work. The stakeholders on that group include the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, Community Justice Scotland, the Scottish Association of Social Work, Social Work Scotland, the Risk Management Authority, the victims organisation collaboration forum Scotland, the office of the chief social work adviser and the Care Inspectorate. Those research partners will work directly with justice social work staff and their clients to obtain insight into how policies work or do not work, as the case may be, on the ground. In addition, the options appraisal process will include officials making visits to stakeholders around Scotland to ensure that the workforce and people with lived experience have opportunities to participate.

I have made a clear commitment to listen to the voices of lived experience and to ensure that stakeholders are involved. We will continue to listen all the way through until we make the decision one way or t’other. However, I reiterate the point that, no matter whether the services that we are talking about are in or out of the national care service, we must ensure that the linkages are better for people.

As Ms Clark knows, the bill is a framework bill, which includes provision to move criminal justice social work and children’s services into the national care service if the Parliament agrees to that.

I expect there to be scrutiny all the way through the process. I have said to numerous committees, and I say to this committee, that we want to be open and transparent about all this. If a decision is taken to move criminal justice social work or children’s services into the national care service, of course there will be scrutiny—there will be scrutiny of the secondary legislation.

As we move forward, we will convey our decisions to the Parliament and to committees for full scrutiny. As I have said to this committee and others, my door is open on all this, because I want to ensure that we get the national care service right for the people of Scotland.

Absolutely. I and my officials have spent a fair amount of time looking at the linkages and listening to the voices of lived experience and stakeholders. I am in regular discussion with Shona Robison on housing and homelessness, and I have had a number of meetings to listen to housing and homelessness stakeholders, as members can imagine. As the former chair of the homelessness prevention and strategy group, that is incumbent on me.

We need to build on some of the good work that we have done in the past on the linkages. As the committee is aware, I introduced the housing first approach, which is a person-centred approach to ensuring that people are housed appropriately and that all the other services come into play around about them. As I said yesterday, I do not have the most up-to-date figures—I should have looked them up last night, but we were busy with other things—but I know that the tenancy retainment rate under the housing first approach has been around 90 per cent, which nobody expected. Why is that? It is because we ensure that housing, social work, health, social care, addiction services and other services work together so that a person-centred approach is taken. If we can do it for housing, we can do it in other areas and ensure that the linkages are right.

Beyond that, legislation is proposed that will cover the public duty to prevent homelessness and get it right for people, which will also be beneficial in ensuring that the linkages become the norm.

No. There will be no privatisation of those services. Mr Greene talked of centralisation, and I say to him that the national care service will balance the need for local flexibility by having care boards plan and commission care while providing national consistency through ministers being ultimately accountable.

Why have we moved in that direction? It is because people have told us that they want ministerial accountability. Accountability has been a high priority in the discussions that have been had. You can see from the Feeley review and other work that folks do not feel that people are necessarily as accountable as they should be for the delivery of services.

Quite frankly, people canna believe that I am not accountable for the delivery of social work and social care services in Scotland at this moment. Folk around this table have written to me to intervene in social work and social care situations in their area, which I cannot do, because that is dealt with by other autonomous bodies.

The public has been clear; more than 72 per cent of respondents to the consultation want ministerial accountability. They also want local accountability to be strengthened, which we will achieve. It is not centralisation; it is about national accountability and setting national high-quality standards that should be applied across the board to ensure that postcode lotteries disappear. It is also about local delivery, local flexibility, local innovation and local accountability.

Good morning, and thank you for having me along today to give evidence.

It is fair to say that the national care service is one of the most ambitious reforms of public services. It will end the postcode lottery of care provision in Scotland and ensure that those who need it have access to consistent and high-quality care and support to enable them to live a full life, wherever they are.

People with experience of receiving social care support, and providing it, have been clear that there is an urgent need for change. The bill sets out a framework for the changes that we want to make and allows scope for further decisions to be made. That flexibility will enable the NCS to develop, adapt and respond to specific circumstances over time.

The principles of any new system will be person centred, with human rights at the very heart of social work and support. No decision has been made yet on whether justice social work will be included in the national care service, but we are making provision to enable that and we are considering what the best approach would be.

I acknowledge that, unlike care, justice social work has the unique feature of being court ordered, placing requirements on those in contact with the service and adding different practical considerations. To fully support those involved in the justice system, a holistic approach that recognises the links between offending and other care and support needs is required, whether justice social work is included in the NCS or not.

The work in progress will collate evidence, work with partners to develop options for the future of justice and include a public consultation at the end of 2023, which is a result of the feedback from stakeholders in the consultation. Justice social work staff and people with lived experience will be central to our programme of work.

The NCS will bring changes that will benefit the workforce, too. The importance of staff in the social work and social care sector has never been clearer, and we are fully committed to improving their experience as we recognise and value the work that they do.

We are committed to co-designing and working with people with first-hand experience of accessing and delivering social work and social care to ensure that we have a person-centred national care service that best fits the needs of the people who will use and work in its services, with human rights at its very centre.

Once that confidentiality is out of the way, we will write to the committee to let you know.

I recognise that, sometimes, folks are wary of change; however, others see opportunity. The Cabinet decision will be taken on the basis of evidence that is collated by the sector. I was clear at the cross-party group on social work and I will be clear with the committee today that the social work profession should be—needs to be—at the heart of shaping the future. We need to listen to the profession. That is what I have committed to doing, and it is why I have made all the appearances and visits that I have made: to listen to what folks have to say.

I do not know the history of the previous proposal, but I am quite happy to go and look at that. I might be able to fit in that reading over the Christmas and new year holidays.