One million hours of social care could have been funded with the £28m spent so far on the SNP Government’s troubled national care service bill. Karen Hedge, Deputy Chief Executive of Scottish Care, made the eye opening claim after Ministers faced calls to dump their flagship policy.
The Government’s NCS proposal involves a huge shake up of the sector in a bid to drive up standards and wages. But the plan, which involves creating a new national care board, has been seen as a power grab from councils and NHS boards.
Council umbrella group COSLA as well as individual trade unions have all walked away, leaving the Bill in trouble.
Hedge, whose group represents care homes, said the cash doled out so far on NCS could have been used on front line services. She told a Holyrood committee: “If I told you that the £28m that have been spent is the equivalent of one million hours of care at home and housing support that could have been delivered, then does that perhaps tell us what we need to be shifting the focus on?”
The STUC, which represents hundreds of thousands of workers, is the latest organisation to withdraw support for the Bill.
General Secretary Roz Foyer said the Government “seems hellbent on repeating the mistakes of the past” by pushing ahead with the legislation.
She added: “That is something that the STUC and our affiliated unions cannot uphold.” She said there needs to be “urgent investment in social care and improved wages”, but insisted this could be achieved without a national care service.
However, First Minister John Swinney said a NCS is thee “most effective way” of improving care services across the country. He said the Government is still seeking to “take forward the proposals”, despite a revolt by key groups.
Swinney stressed: “What we’ve got to do here is to focus on the outcome and what matters. What matters is that we all want to see an improvement in the care that is available to individuals in Scotland and we can achieve that through the National Care Service Bill mechanism. The Government has at no stage been unwilling to develop our proposals, to listen to others, and we are trying to do that as we take forward the proposals.”
To sign up to the Daily Record Politics newsletter, click here