On 24 June the Scottish Government belatedly published its draft amendments to the National Care Service (Scotland) bill. This is UNISON Scotland’s response to the Call for Views issued by the Parliament’s Health and Social Care Committee.
UNISON does not support the bill as amended by the Government.
The bill as amended does not address the underlying causes of the prolonged crisis in our social services system. This is due to a toxic combination of years of chronic underfunding and a deeply fragmented market model of provision.
It does not address the extraction of public money through profit, the insecurity of provision and desperately poor quality jobs that arise from dependency on private providers.
We are opposed to the removal of local authority control and local democratic accountability over local community services.
Three years into the process of implementing Fair Work in social care – a process that lies outside this legislation – we still have nothing concrete to offer workers and the mood of the workforce is mounting anger and frustration.
We fear this unnecessary structural change will continue to divert focus and resources away from where they are needed in frontline services.
UNISON has published its own alternative vision for a REAL National Care Service.