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As our forthcoming article in February’s stronger narrates, the National Care Service (Scotland) Bill has had a tempestuous parliamentary journey. The latest announcement has proved a significant milestone in its tempestuous evolution.
Following a statement on 23 January 2025 to the Scottish Parliament, by Maree Todd MSP, Minister for Social Care, Mental Wellbeing and Sport, it is clear Part One of the Bill will not proceed further, as Scottish ministers accept that it lacks the necessary parliamentary support to pass.
“I will move quickly to establish a National Care Service Advisory Board, on a non-statutory basis. It is my intention that the Advisory Board will include people with lived experience of accessing care services, unpaid carers, those who work in the sector, care providers, the third sector, trade unions, the NHS and local government. I expect the Board to meet for the first time in March this year... At local level, Integration Joint Boards will continue to plan and oversee social care and community health. I will consider what changes can be made to secondary legislation, guidance and the approval of integration schemes to ensure that the voice of lived experience is heard and increase accountability and financial transparency.”
Concern on use of a framework Bill was voiced from its earliest days, with much of the substance of the Service to be created by later secondary legislation. There was Holyrood Committee criticism of the Financial Memorandum costing the Service. Searching questions were raised over inclusion of a wide range of services, and the impact on local democracy and accountability of centralising so many local government and local Health Board functions.
Risk managers will be watching carefully as the establishment of the National Care Service Advisory Board unfolds, and will be carefully considering what the advice of this Board might mean for fulfilment of existing statutory duties. However, what is clear if that those duties will continue to be fulfilled by local authorities and local Health Boards, working with local Integration Joint Boards.
State of play
The Bill itself technically remains before Scottish Parliament in the terms in which it was introduced on 22 June 2022, although draft amendments were circulated last autumn. The Bill currently remains at the beginning of Stage Two of the three stage Holyrood legislative process.
Part One of the Bill would have created the structure of the National Care Service. It outlined the proposed powers of Scottish ministers to establish or abolish care boards, the role of those boards themselves, and the role of Scottish ministers in guiding the actions of the boards, including deciding which local functions should be transferred to the boards, or to Scottish Ministers themselves in the event of emergency or service failure by a board.
Part One would also have given Scottish ministers power to transfer functions of local authorities and health boards to the newly created care boards, but also the power to transfer staff of local authorities, and property and liabilities of any original function holder, to those boards, or to Scottish Ministers themselves, if they were taking over that function.
None of that will now proceed. So what will remain from this Bill? Part Two allows for secondary legislation regulating the sharing of information between care function holders. Part Three of the Bill introduces Anne’s Law, intended to protect the rights of care home residents to maintain connections with family and friends, and vice versa, even at times of crisis, and arises from lived experience during the COVID-19 pandemic. Part Three also creates a right to breaks for unpaid carers.
Snapshot – an England and Wales perspective
The UK Government recently reiterated its commitment to a National Care Service underpinned by national standards as had been set out in their manifesto. Details are expected to be fleshed out following the results of both phases of the independent commission into adult social care by Baroness Casey of Blackstock as a first point of call. Initial solutions towards laying the foundations of a National Care Service are expected in 2026, however, final recommendations from the two-part commission are expected by the end of 2028. We can expect any significant changes to come to the fore in the longer-term following the Commission’s recommendations.
Related item: Update on the National Care Service (Scotland) Bill
Public sector
United Kingdom