A new National Care Service should keep the current East Renfrewshire boundaries, the Scottish Government is set to be told.
Julie Murray, chief officer of East Renfrewshire’s health and social care partnership (HSCP), said her “biggest concern” was the Scottish Government deciding not to follow council boundaries.
“I think we have really benefited from being part of a smallish integration authority,” she said, working alongside the council and with “really good, strong relationships with the third sector”.
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A National Care Service is being developed following a review of adult social care in Scotland and views are being gathered. Under the proposal, a series of care boards would be set up to run social care services rather than local councils, a move which would make Scottish ministers directly responsible.
East Renfrewshire’s HSCP, a partnership between the council and NHS, currently delivers community health and social care services and is directed by the integration joint board (IJB).
Speaking at an IJB meeting, Ms Murray suggested the IJB’s evidence to the Scottish Government should “focus on a few key really important things”. “There will be things that we don’t agree on as individuals, so I’m content to focus on some of the key issues that we don’t want to lose.”
“To me, these are keeping that East Renfrewshire boundary, I think that is really important,” she said, adding they could “make almost anything work if we had an East Renfrewshire boundary”.
“They other key issue for me would be around building on the success of HSCPs and IJBs and building on that integrated management of services, because there’s a bit of a danger, the bill describes a replacement for IJBs, but it doesn’t say anything about the replacement for HSCPs which are the operational management bodies that manage integrated services.
“I would also want to be saying something around how realistic the financial memorandum is, given the spending review.”
The spending review, published at the end of May by the Scottish Government, showed no increase to local government’s core funding for the next three years.
On the memorandum, Ms Murray had earlier said: “One of the interesting things is they did assume a 3% annual increase for social care which is at odds with the reality of the flat cash settlement, so it has been quite generous with that assumption.”
A Bill was published by the Scottish Government in June and the service is expected to launch before the end of this parliamentary term in 2026.
Services such as adult social work and social care, children’s social work and social care and justice social work could be transferred to the service.
Ms Murray said there was a “big push” on co-designing the NCS from the Scottish Government. “We’re very keen for that co-design approach to begin so that we can start to influence,” she added.
“East Renfrewshire has a very long history of close partnership working and strong integration, so we are keen to influence as much as we possibly can in that process.”
Health secretary Humza Yousaf has previously called the NCS plan the “most ambitious reform of public services since the creation of the NHS”. However, Scottish Labour has called the move a “power grab” which “threatens the very existence of local government in Scotland”.
When East Renfrewshire Council responded to consultation on the NCS last year, there was cross-party support for retaining “local accountability”, and some opposition councillors voiced their concerns over the ‘centralisation’ of social care services.
The response also called for funding granted to councils to be increased as it believes improvements will be made “more quickly and effectively” that way.
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