Chamber and committees

This question is for the minister. On the issues that were flagged up during the time that you were reconsidering the bill, are you confident that you have solved the concerns of those who are advising you on co-design?

I understand that, minister, but the end of stage 1 is approaching pretty fast and all parliamentarians—not just those who are on the committees that are addressing concerns about the bill—need a bit more detail, as the convener has suggested, about the likely costs over a 10-year period and about how those relate to the initial costings. We also need to know what the benefits are likely to be.

That is the issue for us. Never mind party politics: this is about scrutiny of what the convener has described as one of the Scottish Government’s flagship policies and of how workable that policy is. Do you agree?

The national care board is an essential part of the administration and workability of the whole bill.

Good morning. Minister, Donna Bell explained to us on Tuesday that the substantial changes that you made to the bill last year arose from the feedback that you had had from your co-design partners about issues with relationships, deliverability, likely disruption and costs. I want to ask about the relationships aspect. What were the co-design partners telling you about problems in respect of relationships?

No, not at all.

I understand why those economic benefits are so important, which is why I am asking the question. If the bill is to be successful, it is essential that those who are scrutinising it can see what those economic benefits are projected to be. You seem to be suggesting that, even at the initial stages of the bill, there was no calculation of what you think its economic benefit would be to society. It seems as though you are still working on those costs.

My point is twofold. First, appreciating what the benefits will be will help us to understand how those might allay some of our concerns about potential costs. Secondly, if co-design is on-going—as your officials and you have said that it is—it is quite difficult for us to understand what the potential costs of that will be in the future, never mind just now. You have said that there are a number of things that you are still working on, such as costs related to carers. Do you accept that it is very difficult for us to scrutinise the longer-term costs of the bill in relation to your projected economic benefits? The data for both those things does not seem to be particularly complete.

That does not give me much confidence that we know what the national care board will be like. Accountability is essential. We absolutely need to know the make-up of the national care board and where accountability will lie. As I understand it, one of the big changes between the first and second iterations of your thinking about the bill is the change from having 32 different boards to having one national care board.

I will leave it there.

SF

In an answer to the convener, you said that you are absolutely certain that the economic benefits resulting from the bill will be far reaching, and that that will be important for delivering the care that you want to deliver in that better social care will improve people’s wellbeing, among other things. Did the Scottish Government measure what you considered the likely economic benefits would be in the previous iteration of the bill’s financial memorandum? Have you measured what you think those benefits will be from the planned changes to the bill?

I understand that the principles are the same and that you have changed the mechanism for the delivery of those principles. My point, and what the committee is interested to know, is: if we want to scrutinise the new financial memorandum and the related costs of the bill, it is essential for us to understand what the costs will be—costs in a financial memorandum cannot be exact, but they can be well estimated—and the economic benefits that will be forthcoming from the bill. At the moment, it seems that we do not have any certainty about that at all, so it is very difficult for the committee.

I have one final question. Where are we with the format for the national care board?