Cosla moves to clarify £1.5bn estimate of national care cost quoted by minister
Cosla has clarified a Scottish Government minister’s claim that it suggested future costs of national care service proposals will top more than £1.5 billion.
Social Care Minister Kevin Stewart quoted the sum in an evidence session with Holyrood’s Finance and Public Administration Committee on November 8.
Committee MSPs were grilling Mr Stewart on financial concerns around the true costs of the proposals, which would see the social care sector put into the Scottish Government’s hands.
Mirren Kelly, the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities’ (Cosla) local government finance chief officer, wrote to the committee to provide “clarification” on financial figures referenced by Mr Stewart during its session on November 8.
She said: “On a couple of occasions during the session, reference was made to a figure of £1.5 billion stated by Cosla as an estimate of future costs in relation to the National Care Service (NCS).
“However, this is not our estimate of the cost of implementing the NCS, but is an estimate we have previously made of the total costs of implementing all of the recommendations of the Independent Review of Adult Social Care”.
At the time, Mr Stewart said: “I have seen estimates of possible costs from others, with the Convention of Local Authorities itself estimating that the costs will be in excess of £1.5 billion, which it says outstrips the pledge of £840 million of investment.
“I am not sure where Cosla and others have got these estimates from. I am more than happy to go through those estimates with them in depth but we have not had sight of them and I would be happy to take an overview in that respect.”
The council body said it had cited the figure several times before during NCS Bill consultations and in financial memorandum correspondence.
Both times Cosla said: “Cosla has estimated the total cost of implementing the recommendations of the Independent Review of Adult Social Care (IRASC) as being over £1.5 billion – far in excess of the more than £840 million stated by the Scottish Government in the resource spending review as the value of its commitment to increased investment in social care by 25% during this Parliament.”
Ms Kelly also said Cosla “to the best of our knowledge” has not “received any inquiries from the Scottish Government regarding the calculation”.
A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “This letter from Cosla is in line with our understanding and confirms the £1.5 billion is for all recommendations associated with the Independent Review, not just the costs of the National Care Service or the Bill.
“Therefore this figure is not comparable to the Financial Memorandum and is not relevant for the committee discussion on the National Care Service.”