National Care Service Bill ‘may be a disaster’

Plans to create a National Care Service should be put on hold, MSPS have been told, with union leaders saying as it stands the Bill to establish the system could be a “bit of a disaster”.

Roz Foyer, the general secretary of the Scottish Trades Union Congress, highlighted fears that reforms “could end up costing an awful lot of money for the Scottish Government at a time when that money could be better used to deal with a system that is in crisis in a much more immediate way”.

The STUC last week wrote to ministers, urging for the Bill to be put aside to “take more time to get it right”.

Cara Stevenson, of the

GMB Scotland trade union, said, as it stands, workers in social care are being asked to “take a leap of faith”.

Much of the detail of the new system is not included in the Scottish Government’s National Care Service (Scotland) Bill, and will instead be developed using secondary legislation, which should see staff, care users and others involved in “codesigning” the service.

Ms Stevenson said: “Looking at reforming the social care sector is welcomed and I think great things could be done with social care if it is done properly.”

But she said: “There has to be more to the Bill that gives the workforce faith this is going to work.”

She told MSPS on

Holyrood’s health and social care committee: “I was, actually, a home carer in a local authority and worked all the way through the pandemic.

“Obviously, at the moment, we feel the Bill is not fit for purpose and the reason for that is we are dealing with a workforce, and I will try to not get emotional when speaking about this, they are broken, they are exhausted.

“Now we’re giving them the National Care Service Bill which doesn’t give them any sort of job security, any sort of value, and any sort of feeling of worth after the nightmare they have just been through for the last two years.”

She added: “We want reform, we want to make social care better, but we feel what they’re being offered right now is not good enough.”

Her concerns were echoed by Tracey Dalling, regional secretary for Unison Scotland, who likened the legislation to “buying a house but without ever having seen it”.

She told the committee: “We genuinely do not know what the future looks like for around 75,000 council staff, and then all the social care staff that work for private contractors, what the future looks like for them.

“In such a critical area of the lives we lead, to have our social care workforce uncertain about who they work for, where they’re going to be, I just think it has all the hallmarks of this being a bit of a disaster at this stage.

“We would absolutely say to you if you won’t withdraw the Bill, please pause it.”

Mary Alexander, deputy regional secretary for the Unite union, told MSPS social care workers were feeling “extremely undervalued”.

But social care Minister Kevin Stewart rejected claims the Bill was a “leap of faith”.

The Scottish Government’s proposals would see social care services come under a new national body, which would then be divided into regional boards in a set-up similar to the NHS.

Mr Stewart insisted that no one had suggested “the wholesale transfer of staff from local authorities to local care boards or the National Care Service”.