National Care Service (NCS) Bill delayed until March

On the 18th of January the Scottish Government announced that Stage 1 of the National Care Service Bill which was due to complete by the end of January will now be extended to the 1st of March 2024. This is to allow Parliament to consider additional information that was submitted to them in December 2023.

Stage 1 was previously due to complete by March 2023 until it was extended to allow the ‘Summer of Codesign’ to be completed: an initiative by the Scottish Government to engage practitioners and the general public in the construction of the bill. It was extended again during July to allow an analysis of the potential impact of the Verity House agreement on the Bill: local by default, meaning that councils will retain personnel and resources that the Bill would have transferred to a National Care Board; and national by agreement, meaning that any decisions that would have implications across 32 local authorities would be agreed at a national level.