Hansard

I record my congratulations to Malcolm Chisholm, Mary Mulligan and Hugh Henry on their appointments, and I look forward to working with them in the coming months. I also extend my good wishes to Susan Deacon. I am sure that she will play an important role for the Labour party on the back benches.

Before I begin, I declare an interest as a member of Unison, which has many members in the health and community care sector.

I add my thanks to Health and Community Care Committee members, to the committee clerks who worked hard to deal with the many submissions on the principles of this important bill, and to those who gave oral evidence to the committee. I must say that I am very disappointed that Scottish Care declined the opportunity to give evidence. That body is a key element in the partnership that will be required to deliver the care that is foreseen in the bill and its views would have been instructive. However, it would be quite wrong for any organisation that has had the opportunity to influence the bill at its earliest stage to criticise the outcomes from the margins. Partnership working requires all partners to play a full part in developing the process. Where better to do that than at the very start?

Partnership in building legislation is unique to the Scottish Parliament and, as such, is a particularly Scottish way of producing better legislation. It is on that partnership aspect of the bill that I want to concentrate. Sections 10 to 14 will enshrine in law, at the very heart of the act, the responsibility of the national health service and local authorities to work together effectively to deliver care services. That issue has been the cause of much heart-searching in the past as well as the cause of many disputes. The committee was disturbed that not enough had been done to ensure that flexible care arrangements were being developed. I draw the ministers' attention specifically to paragraphs 78, 79, 91, 92 and 95 of the committee's stage 1 report.

It is important that joint working can be developed flexibly and locally, but that must not be used as an excuse for delay and disagreement. Joint working also demands that resource transfer be open and clearly identifiable. There are few aspects of local government that have been more guilty of secrecy and, dare I say it, deception in some areas than resource transfer from the national health service to local government. That has been particularly obvious to those of us who have for many months sought to marry the GAE projections for social work funding with outturn spending to ensure that the needs of the most vulnerable people in society are being met from the funding that is made available for that specific group. It is therefore essential that all aspects of resource transfer and the methods of achieving it—such as pooled budgets—are clearly identifiable not just for accountants, but for ordinary Scots whose taxes pay for care.

That approach was called for in a previous Health and Community Care Committee report on the delivery of community care in Scotland, which stated:

"The Executive should take immediate steps to establish a simple and transparent guide to the funding of community care services, accessible to all stakeholders."

That approach would make it much easier to move towards another recommendation, which is made in paragraph 145 of the same report. That paragraph states:

"A single body should be given the role of budget holding, planning and commissioning of community care services."

The Health and Community Care Committee has returned to that view in reviewing the principles behind the bill. There is no reason to modify our stance on that approach. I urge the minister to consider the implications and benefits of such an approach as he takes the bill forward.

We must involve all stakeholders including the NHS, local authorities, the private sector, the voluntary sector, carers, clients and—equally important—the staff who deliver care. Providers must not compete with each other to provide the cheapest care. In the past, that has led to weakening of the quality of services in some areas, which is the very reason that the Regulation of Care (Scotland) Act 2001 was passed.

I have no hesitation in recommending that the Executive support a national pay and conditions scheme for all those who are involved in joint working. That scheme should involve all stakeholders in order to produce an effective national package. It should also be flexible enough to respond to local needs and circumstances. Members have agreed in many debates in the chamber that staff are our most valuable asset. Staff are not looking for words—they are looking for action. I urge the minister to reconsider his earlier statement.

We have an obligation to ensure that real or perceived obstacles are removed so that we can provide the best service for communities. We are concerned that that might not be happening in the integrated human resource working group. The watchword must be partnership—partnership to produce care services that the people of Scotland deserve and that involves all players meaningfully.

I commend the principles of the bill to Parliament and look forward to the minister addressing partnership issues at stage 2.