COSLA President, Councillor Alison Evison, today (Monday) called for some honesty from Scottish Government about how a National Care Service is going to be funded.

Speaking this morning, Councillor Evison said: “Is now really the time for another costly and protracted re-structuring, when our communities need our support to recover from the impacts of the pandemic? Local Government’s view is the time is absolutely not now.

“The improvements and outcomes which are sought could be achieved across our communities more quickly and more effectively by empowering and investing in our councils and their local partners.

“What we would like from the Scottish Government is the costing work that’s been done on creating a new National Care Service and where the additional resource is coming from to pay for it.

“On behalf of our communities - Local Government will continue to work in a constructive and collaborative way with the Scottish Government to reform social care, but it is vital that we have a transparent conversation about the investment and support needed to do this.

“COSLA and Local Government continue to believe that services should be designed with people in our communities who use them on a daily basis and delivered as close as possible to them, and not centralised, as is being proposed.”