SIAA have responded to the Scottish Parliament’s Health, Social Care and Sport Committee Call for Views for Stage 2 of the National Care Service (NCS) Bill. The National Care Service (NCS) Bill allows Scottish Ministers to transfer social care responsibility from local authorities to a new, national service. The NCS Bill could make significant changes to how social care works in Scotland and therefore have a huge impact on people that access independent advocacy in relation to social care.
SIAA and members organisations have worked to influence how independent advocacy is included in the NCS Bill for several years. In this Stage 2 Call for Views SIAA have highlighted a key change to wording of draft amendments to ensure that ‘independent advocacy’ is included in full in the text of the Bill. The draft amendments published by the Scottish Government diluted the original wording around independent advocacy with amendment PCO103. The section of the Bill now includes independent advice and information. Whilst SIAA are fully supportive of the Bill including advice and information the amendment PCO103 removes the term ‘independent advocacy’ from the Bill which SIAA and our member organisations would strongly advise against. SIAA are hopeful that this draft amendment can be easily rectified with the addition of the word ‘independent’ before ‘advocacy’ as described in more detail in our response.
SIAA are making several further recommendations in our response around independent advocacy. In particular, including a definition of independent advocacy and a right of access to independent advocacy in the primary legislation.
Read SIAA’s response to the Stage 2 Call for Views in the SIAA Information Hub.
Background information
You can read more about the NCS Bill on the Scottish Parliament website and the Scottish Government website.
On 24 June 2024, the Committee received the following package of documents from the Scottish Government:
- National Care Service (Scotland) Bill – draft Stage 2 amendments | Scottish Parliament Website
- Read an overview of the Scottish Government’s documents from the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (SPICe)
SIAA published a briefing paper on the legal definition of independent advocacy earlier in 2024 that outlines specific recommendations to Government and policy makers about how to define independent advocacy in primary legilsation like the NCS Bill.
