National Care Service plan 'delayed not scrapped'

The Scottish government is again delaying its flagship plans for a National Care Service - but denies reports that the policy has been dropped.

Health Secretary Neil Gray said he was "absolutely committed" to the scheme, which aims to transfer responsibility for social care away from councils to a new national body.

Opposition parties are opposed to the plans, which have already been delayed by three years due to financial pressures and uncertainty over costs.

The Scottish government said that it needed time to consider views and a new timetable would be worked out in the new year.

MSPs were due to consider potential amendments to the bill later this month.

The health secretary said that the government was "considering all options".

Gray said there had been no decisions yet as to how the final bill would be formulated as he sought support to pass the legislation.

The scheme was first announced following the Covid pandemic

The legislation aims to centralise adult social care currently delivered by local authorities into a single body accountable to the Scottish government.

The health secretary stressed that part one of the legislation - which sets up the national oversight body - had not been dropped.

He said the SNP was committed to a scheme that delivers "nationally agreed and nationally enforceable standards" of social care.

Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat MSPs stood in opposition to the scheme. They were joined by Greens MSPs last month.

The SNP is in power as a minority administration after a power-sharing agreement with the Greens collapsed in April.

They must now rely on the support of other parties to pass legislation at Holyrood.

But at the Greens' party conference in Greenock members voted to withdraw support saying the scheme was "not fit for purpose” in its current form.

Scottish Green health and social care spokeswoman Gillian Mackay had said the bill was "contrary to Green values" and a "power grab” on local authorities.

The Scottish Lib Dems said the plans had "attracted clear opposition from every quarter".

Leader Alex Cole-Hamilton said: “If this is the death knell of this centralising ministerial takeover of social care, I am glad.

"Scottish Liberal Democrats are the only party to have opposed it from day one. For four years, the SNP has wasted £30m a bureaucratic power grab."