Chamber and committees

One of the key things will be that we move to more independence and autonomy for front-line staff. We see in parts of the country where independence and autonomy are given to front-line staff that there is better service delivery, less crisis, lower costs to the public purse and the human cost of getting it wrong is stopped.

There is a good example in my home city of Aberdeen, where the Granite Care Consortium has given its front-line care-at-home staff the ability to step up or step down care as folks’ circumstances change. As you can imagine, care is mostly stepped up, although some care is stepped down. Obviously, that happens only in consultation with the folks who are receiving the care, their families and their carers. However, that ability cuts out reassessment, which is bureaucratic and takes time, and it is much better for the individual because change happens much faster. Preventative measures are being used already that we need to see being used across the board. That is another reason for the changes.

The financial memorandum was written when inflation was much lower than it currently is, and when forecasts did not show what was about to hit us thanks to Trussonomics and other factors.

Of course, we will all be watching this week to see the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s budget statement—whatever it is being called this time—which is likely, unfortunately, to lead to further squeezing of public services. I wish that the situation was different but, unfortunately, what will happen will be what the UK Government decides. I wish that we were making those decisions here. I hope that Ms Wells, Mr Briggs and others will be lobbying the chancellor hard to ensure that there are no further cuts to public services that will impact on people here.

What I said to the Finance and Public Administration Committee is that we will continue to update Parliament about the changes as they occur according to forecasts. That does not mean that we will change the financial memorandum, which was laid when the bill was laid. It also does not mean that we will not continue to do all the work that is required to ensure that we know exactly what the costs are as we move forward. That is why I said earlier that we will update business cases.

Future investment is always subject to the annual parliamentary budget and parliamentary budget scrutiny. We will obviously have to take into cognisance the financial hand that has been dealt to us by Westminster.

However, I come back to my earlier point: it might well be that the pace of change has to be incremental and we might have to take more time over certain aspects. That might involve phasing, as the cabinet secretary said at the weekend. However, we cannot sit back and not change, because we know that a huge demographic change is about to happen: we know that the population is changing. We also know that care is changing. We need, as Mr McLennan rightly pointed out just minutes ago, to move to prevention rather than dealing with crisis. Therefore, no matter what financial cards we are dealt by the United Kingdom Government, we have to make changes for the good of the people of this country.

I think that there are huge opportunities with regard to shared services. In my experience of shared services in local government, fairly substantial savings have been made that have gone back into front-line services. Let us be honest—the national care service is all about delivery on the front line for people.

I will not go on at length, because I know that time is ticking, but I mentioned earlier that we have already said we will look at all aspects of what is proposed, including cost neutrality for local government. In order for us to get that right, we need local government to be at the table when it comes to co-design.

I am well aware of the many opportunities and challenges that exist here. Others have a lot of knowledge that they can bring to bear, too, and we are happy to listen to them and take on board their knowledge as we move forward.

What I would say to local authorities is that they still have responsibility for delivery. I trust local authorities to do what is right for the populations and the people they represent. It would be particularly daft to stop delivery and to stop investment.

With regard to your question about front-line staff—I agree that the focus of front-line staff at the moment is on delivering for the people they care for and support daily—I will use not my words, but those of Mike Burns, who is the assistant chief officer at Glasgow City Council and the vice-convener of Social Work Scotland. He told the Education, Children and Young People Committee that he agreed that change was needed. He said that there was little impact on front-line staff, that the focus of delivery at the moment was on the valuable and valued work that they do on a daily basis and that senior managers were beginning to consider the proposals.

I think that that is right. The main focus of front-line staff at the moment is on the delivery of care and services. I hope that we can get front-line staff involved in the co-design process, too. I recognise that we will have to be adept in doing everything that we can to allow them that opportunity. As far as the national care service is concerned, I have no evidence that any of what is proposed is having any impact on delivery.

I would say that the bill entirely fits in with the charter. I will write to the committee with all the details of how it does so. I have some details here that I cannot find at the moment, but I will write to the committee to show exactly how the bill fits in with the charter, if that suits you, convener.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity.

Absolutely, as we work forward in all of this, we will continue to provide business cases and impact assessments for scrutiny by all committees and by Parliament. We need to do that in the interest of openness and transparency as we move through the co-design process and we have to take cognisance of any impact on any part of the system at all.

However, as I said minutes ago, the bill as it stands has no direct impact on local authorities. There are a lot of myths going round about what may happen. Let me give you examples. You talked about transfer of staff. In the bill there is the ability to transfer staff, because care boards, as envisaged, will be the provider of last resort. If a care home or care service fell over, there would have to be the ability to transfer staff and assets in order to protect that service. However, nobody has suggested—certainly, I have not—the wholesale transfer of staff from local authorities to local care boards or to the national care service. As I said earlier, I see local authorities as being important delivery partners, which is why I want them at the table co-designing.

Equally, there has been a lot of talk of transferring assets. Again, that is not something that is necessary. It has to be looked at in the co-design, but some of the witnesses who have been at this committee and others have suggested that there will be the wholesale transfer of staff and assets including, I believe, electric cars. That is not as we envisage it, but we have to have the ability in the bill to ensure that there is a provider of last resort.

There are a number of things in that. Oversight and accountability came out very clearly in Derek Feeley’s review and recommendations, and in the work that we have done prior to, during and since the consultation. National oversight will be better in terms of sharing of good practice and innovation. Developments that take place in one part of the country are often not easy to export to other places.

The bill will also remove unwanted duplication and functions, and make best use of public funds.

I have come across no one who does not want high-quality national standards. That is a priority for folks with lived experience of care and their carers, and it is extremely important for front-line staff. It is very clear from everything that we have heard that people want national accountability—they want ministers to be accountable. Among the faces around this table and people around Parliament are many who write to me to ask me to get involved in cases in their constituencies to do with social care. I have to say that I have no responsibility and no accountability, in that regard. I can set policy direction as a minister, but I am not accountable and do not deliver the services. People do not get that; they think that national accountability and national oversight are needed. In particular, people want high-quality national standards in order that we can end the postcode lottery of services.

Another aspect to consider is local accountability. It does not work well in some areas, so we need tighten it. People need to know what to expect in delivery of services.

There is a huge opportunity to improve standards; we have different standards in different places. The change also gives us the opportunity to ensure fair work and fair terms and conditions, which is not the case at the moment. Terms and conditions and pay cause a great deal of grief not only in social care, but in social work. Without naming authorities—that would be a bit naughty of me—I point out that certain parts of the country are having real problems in recruiting social workers because other authorities nearby offer better terms and conditions and pay. There is an argument that that represents local flexibility, but there is also an argument that it leads to real difficulties in recruitment and retention in some areas, which means that there is diminution of services there. In respect of pay, conditions and fair work, the national service is the right way forward.

We have uplifted pay twice in one year in adult social care. That has not been easy for me or my officials because we are dealing with 1,200 disparate employers. We need to change that, as we move forward, in order to get it right.

Those are a few reasons why we need to move to national oversight. At the top of the list is high-quality national standards so that people know what level of service they can expect, no matter where they are in Scotland.

Anne’s law is on the face of the bill and in primary legislation. Can I lay out the way in which this occurred? The consultation was published in August 2021, as I am sure the committee will recognise. That set out the proposals for change. The responses to the consultation supported change and a huge range of views were in favour of co-design principles. That allows us to work through all the matters that are important to people out there.

One of the key things that I should highlight to the committee is that, in the past, people have not been at the heart of the changes that we have made. That has created implementation gaps, and that is not good for anyone. It is not good for front-line staff and it is certainly not good for those folk who require care and support, or for their carers or their families.

This is the right thing to do. We never achieve perfection, but the way in which we are shaping this, with people at the heart of it, is the right thing to do. Again, I highlight the fact that, in terms of the co-design and the secondary legislation, we will consult all the way through in order to get this right. If we find that there are flaws in what we come up with in the secondary legislation, the fact that it is in secondary legislation makes it much easier to adapt. Some of the key frustrations that are out there are around about where the Parliament has set good legislation with good intention but there has been an implementation gap.

You may well seek an example, so I will give you one. The Social Care (Self-directed Support) (Scotland) Act 2013 is a good piece of legislation, which we will build on in the work that we are doing here, but some folk have used some aspects of that primary legislation to find loopholes in order not to deliver as per the spirit of the act. We need to change that, but it is not so easy to change something over a short period of time when it is set in stone in primary legislation. It is much easier to do that in secondary legislation. That is what the voices of lived experience want to see, rather than sometimes being stuck in a cul de sac in which the spirit of legislation is not being lived up to.

This has to be part of the co-design process. What we have ensure is that, if there is a need to be provider of last resort, we have the ability to transfer staff and assets. That may not necessarily be from local authorities, but the committee will understand the need for a local care board to be able to deal with emergency situations. I have explained the reasoning why that is in play in the bill. We can spell out that reasoning in more detail. We have to do it in order to protect people who may face difficult situations. This talk that we have already decided to transfer staff and assets wholesale is not the case.