A Holyrood committee has said it is still “not confident” about the costings of the flagship National Care Service (NCS) Bill, despite more than a year of scrutiny.
The Finance Committee first published a report voicing concerns about the costs of the planned overhaul of the care system in December 2022.
Since then, the Scottish Government has changed its plans for the NCS and pushed the “go live” date back by three years to 2029.
Social care minister Maree Todd and civil servants appeared before the committee last month, saying costs have been reduced and made less uncertain.
Ms Todd said the NCS will bring wider economic benefits and is “morally and ethically the right thing for us to do”.
We've written to Minister @MareeToddMSP following our latest scrutiny of the revised costs associated with the #NationalCareService Bill. The deadline for completing Stage 1 of the Bill is 1 March 2024.
Read our letter and conclusions👇https://t.co/G80xKuXs5R pic.twitter.com/wng0XHV4N2
— Finance and Public Admn Committee (@SP_FinancePAC) February 8, 2024
But the committee has now written to the minister, saying it is “not confident” the figures in the latest financial memorandum accurately reflect the costs of the Bill.
The deadline for completing stage one of the Bill is March 1.
Committee convener Kenneth Gibson signed the letter, raising a number of issues he and the cross-party group of MSPs wished to highlight.
He said: “The committee acknowledges the significant amount of work that has been undertaken to improve the cost estimates associated with the National Care Service (Scotland) Bill since we published our report on the original FM (financial memorandum) back in December 2022.
“This includes narrowing the variances between the lower and upper cost ranges and enhancing the level of detail regarding the costs associated with the rights to breaks for unpaid carers.
“The reduction in the maximum cost variance from 225% to 45%, if one compares the 10-year costings in the new (financial memorandum) with the original proposals, is a welcome indicator of the work undertaken to provide more accurate, as well as lower, costs.”
Many of the MSPs’ questions are around the use of co-design – which incorporates the views of people who have experience of the system into the Bill.
They say this has the potential to add significant costs and should have been done at an earlier stage.
In the Government’s new financial memorandum, the costs over a 10-year period amount to between £631 million and £916 million.
Compared to the original proposals, this was said to be a saving of between £249 million and £1.276 billion.
Mr Gibson continued: “Nevertheless, the committee still has concerns regarding the approach taken by the Scottish Government to introduce a ‘framework’ Bill and use ‘co-design’ to develop the detail of the policy as the Bill progresses through Parliament.
“Had this committee accepted the original financial memorandum presented by the Scottish Government, it would have led to significant unnecessary expense to the public purse at a time of severe strain on Scotland’s public finances.”