Chamber and committees

One suggestion that has been made has been that the IJBs or the health and social care partnerships could just take on some different responsibilities, given that the numbers might merge or vary a bit. That would save setting up new structures, with the inevitable duplication and staff focusing on what will happen to their careers, for example, that that would mean. Would simply using the existing structures not have been a cheaper option?

It really means that, at least during the set-up process, we are going to have another organisation—the care board—on top of the existing ones. The suggestion seems to be that we cannot just switch other things off—the IJB or whatever—on the same day. Much as I am in favour of jobs for accountants, that means that there will be a finance director in the council, a finance director in the health board, a finance director in the health and social care partnership and a finance director in the care board. That seems to be quite a lot of duplication.

Okay. On another subject, we have already noted that various people have raised the issue of VAT. I take your point that you are having talks with HM Revenue and Customs and other bodies and you will come back to us on that, but I want to press you on it a little bit more. The point has been made that a lot will depend on the type of legal entity that the care boards will be. Can you say anything about that? Is it possible to say that we will choose a legal entity that will definitely avoid VAT?

I will build on some of what has already been said. On how much planning was done before the bill was introduced and how many care boards there will be, I imagine that the costs would be quite different if there were 32 care boards, which would match each council area, or eight or nine, which would match the health board areas as they are. At what stage is the thinking on that? Is that also a co-design issue?

That will do for now.

You said that you will give us more information as we go forward. Can you clarify whether the financial memorandum will be revised before stage 3 or whether the business cases—which are, I take it, not part of the statutory process—will be on-going, perhaps for years?

Probably, given that a lot of—

That is okay. I am not too worried about that. How do you see the process of developing the business cases? Will it be an annual process, or maybe a six-monthly one? Will the business cases go to the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee or will they come to us?

Another concern that witnesses raised with us is that, if secondary legislation is used for some of the roll-out of the national care service, there will be less scrutiny of it. That is normally the case with secondary legislation.

You have suggested that some local authorities might continue to run assets such as care homes—certainly, Glasgow has built some quite modern ones—and that some assets might be transferred into the national care service. An issue has been raised with us about how the finances for that would work. Some councils might have paid off loans, but some might still have loans or public-private partnership agreements linked to new care homes. Do you know whether the Government would be taking on the loan as well as the asset or, again, will that be considered in later discussions?

You mentioned staff transfer, which is another issue that has been raised with us. Even among care staff working for councils, there will be a wide range of terms and conditions at the moment, and that range will be even wider when the third and private sectors are brought in. Where are we on the costs of that? I presume that, in the long run, the aim is to consolidate people’s terms and conditions so that they are more consistent.