Hansard

Thank you, Presiding Officer. I apologise for missing the first minute of the minister’s opening speech.

I also convey my thanks to the Finance and Public Administration Committee’s clerking team, who have been very strong in their support of our deliberations. Following on from Clare Haughey’s contribution, I note that our committee reached consensus in our deliberations, which I am about to discuss.

I am pleased to contribute to the debate on behalf of the Finance and Public Administration Committee and highlight the key issues that we identified during scrutiny of the financial memorandum to the bill.

The committee examined the costs that are associated with the National Care Service (Scotland) Bill and the programme and first reported on the FM in December 2022. Our report raised

“significant concerns in relation to the costings”

in the financial memorandum. We considered that the financial memorandum

“does not provide best estimates of the costs the Bill gives rise to.”

We requested

“a revised Financial Memorandum, including full details of the underlying assumptions, updated estimates for the gaps identified in this report, as well as updates to the existing cost estimates set out in the FM.”

Last December, the minister provided an updated FM, along with a summary of the financial implications of changes that were proposed to the bill following agreement between COSLA and the Scottish Government on shared accountability for the NCS, as well as a programme business case.

We took further evidence from the bill team and minister on 23 and 25 January respectively, and set out our conclusions in a letter to the Scottish Government on 8 February.

The changes that the Scottish Government proposed would remove a number of the uncertainties that we originally highlighted, including around the transfer of staff and assets, and the number of care boards, and would extend the timeline for implementation to a 10-year period.

The original FM presented costs ranging from £644 million to £1,260 million over a period of five years. The updated FM, based on the bill proposals as introduced, estimates costs of £880 million to £2,192 million over a decade. Under revised proposals that are to be introduced by amendment at stage 2, total costs over a 10-year period fall dramatically to between £631 million and £916 million—substantially lower than in the original and updated versions of the FM.

The committee has acknowledged the work that has been undertaken to improve the cost estimates that are associated with the bill since we published our report on the original FM in December 2022. That includes narrowing the variances between the lower and upper cost ranges and enhancing the level of detail regarding the costs associated with the right to breaks for unpaid carers, which now form the bulk of the proposed expenditure. The reduction of the maximum cost variance from 225 per cent to 45 per cent, when comparing the 10-year costings of the new FM with the original, is a welcome indicator of the work to provide more accurate and lower costs.

Nevertheless, the committee has concerns regarding the approach taken by the Scottish Government in introducing a framework bill and using co-design to develop the detail of the policy as the bill progresses through Parliament. We would prefer co-design to be undertaken as early as possible to enable inclusion in primary legislation. Had the committee accepted the original financial memorandum, it would have led to significant unnecessary expense for the public purse at a time of severe strain on Scotland’s public finances.

As we explored during evidence, some risks and uncertainty around costings remain, such as the potential for VAT liability should direct funding be provided to the integration authorities; costs associated with the proposals for information sharing or the creation of an integrated health and social care record; the format, functions and membership of the national care board; and the unknown level of unmet need that the NCS will need to address.

We heard in evidence that the co-design process continues to support development of the policy detail to be included in secondary legislation after the bill has passed, and that business cases are being developed to support that work. We welcome the Scottish Government’s intention to share those with the committee, along with associated costs. We are concerned that the piecemeal nature of providing updates in different formats is not conducive to effective parliamentary scrutiny.

We will continue to monitor the finances that are associated with the bill and take this opportunity to reiterate our request to the Scottish Government that the committee is kept updated of all costs relating to the bill and the programme as they progress.