National Care Service (NCS) Bill passes Stage 1

Yesterday (29th February) the National Care Service passed its first test in Parliament and will now progress to stage 2. The Bill passed using the Scottish Government’s majority but there are clear challenges ahead for the bill, and for social work’s position within it.

During the sometimes-fractious debate a number of MSPs were concerned that the framework bill relies too heavily on secondary legislation, which is not scrutinised to the same degree as primary legislation. Others were equally concerned that the costs for the NCS remain undetermined whilst the Scottish Government continues to ‘co-design’ secondary legislation with stakeholders as the Bill goes through Parliament. Crucially many MSPs, and the scrutinising committee, were unclear what that term meant in this context and have asked for a legislative advisory group to be established to oversee the co-design process.

MSPs also questioned why the National Social Work Agency was not in primary legislation, and why it did not also cover social care. SASW’s position is that the National Social Work Agency is one of two essential changes necessary to ensure the future for social workers. 

The current funding and legislative environment are a clear and present danger to the profession, and an Agency that can minimise the flood of social work legislation, promote consistency of terms and conditions with employers and to advocate for the profession is essential.

We also advocate for a much more powerful Chief Social Work Advisor with Director level status within the Scottish Government to influence those budget decisions that could make or break social work as we know it.

The Bill will now progress to stage 2. This is where most of the changes to the proposed legislation will take place and it will take a more final form. The Scottish Government will provide the parliamentary committee scrutinising the Bill with a list of proposed amendments (changes) to the Bill, and MSPs from any party, or none, can also propose amendments, these will then be considered by the committee and sometimes also voted on in the chamber. Following the Scottish Government’s own plan these changes will be large scale because the Bill, as it is currently drafted, does not reflect the new ambitions the Government has for the NCS. You can read more about the stages a bill goes through here, Stages of a bill - Visit & Learn :  Scottish Parliament. 

We look forward to presenting the amendments that our members have helped us to draw up in advance of Stage 2 and influencing the development of the NCS over the coming months.