Financial planning by the integration joint boards (IJBs) that manage more than £8bn of public money has been described as “limited in the extreme”.

Holyrood’s health committee outlined a raft of problems with health and social care authorities’ cash management.

One of the issues highlighted by convener Lewis Macdonald was IJB spending plans “completely lacking any forward look”.

In a letter he added there had been “significant challenges even in accessing timely information on [the] agreed budgets of the IJBs.”

The north-east MSP was responding to a request from the Scottish parliament’s finance committee requesting information on how it planned to scrutinise health and social care spending in the year ahead.

Mr Macdonald said his committee had been focusing on the work of Scotland’s 31 IJBs that were set up in 2014 to bring community health and social care services together.

However he said MSPs had only had “limited success” in identifying the outcomes and benefits the joint boards deliver and had struggled to get information about their spending.

Despite an expectation that financial plans should look at five-year periods, the committee convener said the strategies “barely extend[ed] into the current year”.

Two-thirds of IJBs are facing budget deficits to the total tune of nearly £90m, it emerged in September.

IJBs have raised concerns funding allocations are not keeping pace with growing demand for services.

If they run out of cash councils and NHS partners may have to make one-off payments to balance the books.

But in some cases there have been disputes over who should step in to pay the bill.

Legislation requires integration authorities to publish financial information in the public domain.

A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “We continue to invest in social care and integration, and this year our package of investment to support these services will exceed £700m, a 29% increase over last year.

“The joint review of progress with integration, published in February 2019, made practical proposals to help address finance management, and specific attention was paid to developing proposals that will improve integrated finances and financial planning. With COSLA, we are working closely with IJBs, councils and NHS boards to implement these proposals in full.”