HOLYROOD’S Finance Committee has expressed “significant concerns” over the cost of the new National Care Service (NCS). 

In a damning report, MSPs also warn that ministers may be “potentially misleading” the Scottish Parliament over the size of the final bill.

Scottish Parliament researchers estimate the bill over five years could be between £664 million and £1.261 billion.

Health Secretary Humza Yousaf introduced the National Care Service (Scotland) Bill in June promising to end what he described as the “postcode lottery of care.”

The legislation, currently making its way through Holyrood, will see the government set up “care boards” directly accountable to Scottish ministers who will take on functions and staff that are currently managed and run by local authorities and health boards.

Criticism of the bill has been mounting in recent months, with MSPs, councils, unions and organisations and carer’s charities urging the government to pause or think again.

The legislation introduced by Mr Yousaf is a framework bill, which means it does not contain a huge amount of detail about what the service will look like. 

Instead it “leaves space for more decisions to be made at later stages through co-design with those who have lived experience of the social care system, and flexibility for the service to develop and evolve over time”.

In their report, the committee says the lack of detail in the Financial Memorandum (FM) published alongside the bill “does not provide best estimates of the costs” of the NCS.

The committee says that not only are a large number of decisions which will have impacts on the costs “yet to be made” but “no estimates of costings have been provided for VAT liability, transfer of assets and staff and the creation of a health and social care record, all of which have the potential to result in significant costs”.

On VAT, the Scottish Government’s intention is to work out an arrangement with the Treasury to make the NCS “fiscally neutral”.

However, the committee pointed out that that is not guaranteed and ministers should have provided a range of estimates. 

“The exclusion of VAT considerations from the FM, in practice, translates into an assumption of zero liability, which is potentially misleading,” the MSPs warn. 

Because the government are looking to do much of the decision-making with future secondary legislation, there is not enough detail on costs to allow the committee “to fully assess or scrutinise the financial implications of the Bill”.

“The significant gaps highlighted throughout our report, in combination with the Scottish Government’s approach to introducing the primary legislation prior to completion of the co-design process, has frustrated the parliamentary scrutiny process.”

The committee goes on to say that they share “the views of some stakeholders that the level of detail provided in the Financial Memorandum is inadequate and neither supports effective scrutiny nor provides assurance that the new arrangements will be placed on a sustainable financial footing”.

SNP convener of the committee Kenneth Gibson said MSPs appreciated the intention to co-design the service with those most closely affected.

“That work could, however, have been undertaken prior to the introduction of primary legislation,” he added.

“Major bills should not be implemented via secondary legislation, or through business cases, which cannot be subject to the same in-depth, formal scrutiny as financial memorandums to bills.

“The significant gaps highlighted throughout our report have frustrated the parliamentary scrutiny process.”

Scottish Labour Health spokesperson Jackie Baillie said the report was “scathing” and called for the legislation to be paused.  

“Even the SNP’s own MSPs are losing faith in these unworkable, unpopular and uncosted plans,” she said.

Yesterday, Social Care minister Kevin Stewart said the Scottish Government still intended to launch the NCS in the current session of the Scottish Parliament, which ends in 2026.

He said he wanted to create a service which is “sustainable”.