Chamber and committees

I do not think that it is possible to change the financial memorandum before stage 3, but let me check that and get back to you.

As I said, we have made no decisions on assets or staff transfer. That is part of the co-design process, and I hope that local government and others will be fully engaged in that. However, currently, services are often transferred to local authorities, as provider of last resort, if there are difficulties with delivery. As I have said, the bill will provide for transfer, if Parliament agrees that care boards should become the provider of last resort. That will make such transfers possible if a particular service collapses.

We have a mixed model at the moment, and I am sure that we will continue to have a mixed model. However, there will be changes because, at the end of the day, one of the main aims is to ensure that people have fair work and that there is national sectoral bargaining for pay and conditions—that is extremely important. There is also the aspect of ethical procurement, and fair work absolutely has to be embedded in that.

That is what we need to do to ensure that we attract more folk to the care profession—to create the right environment to attract people to come and work in the profession and, beyond that, to ensure that we can provide the career pathways that young people want but feel are not there at the moment. Those are some of the main opportunities of the journey that we are embarking on. If we do not move forward on that front, it will be more difficult to have a sustainable care provision as we move forward.

The Government set out a number of commitments for a national care service. The first commitment was to establish a social covenant steering group within 100 days and take cognisance of the mine of information that it would gather. We said that we would publish the bill within the first year of the current session of Parliament, which we have done.

We have also said that, during the whole process, we will continue to engage with, and listen to, the voices of lived experience, which we will do. Those folks, along with other stakeholders, will help us to co-design the bill.

I have trust and faith that those folks will help us to do that. We need to ensure—as I am quite sure that we will do—that as many people as possible are involved in the co-design. In so doing, we will work our way through to ensure that there are no unintended consequences, as Ms Thomson asked us to do earlier, and that we provide Parliament with the ultimate amount of opportunities for scrutiny of not only the secondary legislation but every aspect of the financial and economic impact of the decisions that are made during the co-design process.

No.

Absolutely.

You mentioned several organisations that want answers to questions. Some of those questions canna be answered, because those matters are subject to the co-design process. Some of the folks that you mentioned want no change whatsoever. That is not an option at all, because we have to ensure, no matter what, that social care is sustainable for the future.

Beyond that, I note that many of the stakeholders from which the committee has heard are folks who have power and influence and perhaps do not want to see that change. This committee, along with other committees in the Parliament, needs to listen to the voices of lived experience and the change that they want. You should listen to some of the third sector organisations that feel that the current system does not work for them, and to those folks who want change.

The Government made a commitment in its manifesto to introduce legislation to establish a national care service. That is what we are embarking on.

I am sure that there would be arguments galore no matter which way round we had chosen to do it. However, we need to get on with it. We need to have faith and trust in the co-design process, and ensure that people who have not had their voices heard thus far are at the table making the decisions about the issues that affect them on a daily basis in relation to their care and support.

As I said, I think that if we had moved in another direction some folk in Parliament would have said, “Nah, you have to do the primary legislation first”.

There is no provision for IT in the bill; therefore it is not in the financial memorandum.

It is still the local authority’s statutory responsibility to deliver social care and social work. I am quite sure that, in all of this, folk will look to the future in relation to delivering all of that to members of the public instead of considering only their asset base.