The true cost of implementing the Feeley review and setting up a National Care Service could end up being double what the Scottish government has pledged, COSLA has warned.

In a detailed critique, the local authority body says costs have been severely underestimated and crucial detail is lacking.

Implementing all the government’s proposals could exceed £1.5bn, nearly double ministers’ pledge to increase care spending by £800m, the analysis suggests.

Scottish councils say they were not consulted on the expanded remit of the blueprint and that the unexpected inclusion of children’s services goes against their previous agreement with the Scottish government.

The claims raise fresh questions about how much it will cost to deliver ambitious plans to improve social care services.

In his review of adult social care, Derek Feeley estimated an additional £660m would be needed to fund a National Care Service. He has since described this figure as the “floor rather than the ceiling”.

During the election campaign an SNP party spokesperson told healthandcare.scot they were “confident” their pledge of an additional £800m of care spending by 2026 would be sufficient to “deliver the Feeley recommendations [and] create a National Care Service".

But COSLA says several key recommendations have not been costed:

‘Two of the most important un-costed recommendations in the IRASC related to the need to strengthen the foundations of social care: Fair Work pay increases for social care workers…and increased rights and support for Scotland’s unpaid carers.

‘These alone would increase the need for additional adult social care funding on top of the £660m running into at least hundreds of millions of pounds.

‘COSLA and local government professional associations are very concerned [the Scottish government’s £800m minimum commitment by 2026-27] is far too small to cover all of the un-costed recommendations.

‘As there are no costings at all in the consultation paper, it is impossible to consider whether a NCS would provide a Best Value approach…It is difficult to respond to consultation on such significant changes without a candid conversation about the resourcing implications for the whole public sector.’

Nicola Sturgeon has previously described a new care service as one of the biggest public sector reforms since the founding of the NHS.

But COSLA claims the consultation process for such significant changes had been “simply too short”.

The organisation adds:

‘The proposals within the consultation are lacking a significant amount of detail, which makes it very challenging to consider the implications of the proposals.

‘There is, in general, a need for a robust evidence base to support many of the proposals that are put forward, in all too brief terms, in the consultation document.’

Local government has previously responded with anger at the plans to remove their role in not only adult social care but social work and children’s services.

The inclusion of the latter, COSLA says, represents a broken promise from the Scottish government.

COSLA said: ‘Indeed, the Scottish government and COSLA had previously agreed that education and early learning and childcare should not be delivered separately from children’s services, given the evident need for joined up delivery in these areas.’

The representative body has today launched a campaign for a reversal of historical local authority cuts ahead of the Scottish Budget publication next month.

It says many of the issues within the current social care system are the product of chronic under-funding and investment now could ‘support meaningful change’.

With a large share of local authority funding set to be carved out for an NCS, COSLA warns councils could struggle to deliver remaining services.

 

Read more: NCS commissioning reforms ‘do not go far enough’; Islands & rural areas ‘overlooked’ in NCS; Minister: More Care Service planning to be outsourced

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