ON September 5, the Scottish government’s Programme for Government (PfG) set out its four priorities for the years ahead, one of which is “ensuring high-quality and sustainable public services.”

This was delivered by the First Minister without a hint of irony, despite Scotland’s Finance Secretary, just days before, announcing £500 million cuts to public services.

The phrase in the PfG that “investment in public services is not a cost, but a vital investment in our future health, equality and prosperity,” rings very hollow, yet is one that most activists would completely agree with.

Let’s take the proposals for a national care service (NCS). It is clear to everyone but the Scottish government that the problems identified in social care and social work, which an NCS is meant to address, are in large part down to insufficient funding for the sector. Year-on-year cuts to councils throughout austerity have left them struggling to provide basic services with many lost altogether.

A recent Unison Scotland survey of members in adult social work (care management) saw responses from across 30 of the 32 councils in Scotland. These revealed an adult social work service on its knees, budget-driven, with crisis management the norm in many areas.

Staff shortages and high caseloads mean that many workers are unable to practice in line with their social work values. They lack the opportunity to be person-centred and needs-led, or to take a preventative, early intervention approach, even though this would save money in the longer term as well as better meeting their service users’ needs.

The outsourcing of care services to the private sector only exacerbates the problem, with money leaching out of communities into the pockets of shareholders rather than being invested in improving services.

A report by the Centre for Health and the Public Interest (CHPI) partly funded by Unison found that out of a total annual income of £15 billion, an estimated £1.5bn (10 per cent) leaks out of the UK care home industry annually, money that could have gone to frontline care.

So you’d think that the Scottish government would recognise the need to invest in front-line services and take profit out of care. Nope. Instead, the National Care Service (Scotland) Bill just makes structural tweaks to a failed model.

It won’t work. The last big change to “fix” social care, Health and Social Care Integration, set up integrated joint boards (IJBs). Over the past eight years these have, against the background of extreme funding pressures, only achieved even greater outsourcing of NHS and council care services.

An Audit Scotland report this year found that IJB funding has decreased by £1.1bn (9 per cent) in real terms to £11bn in 2022-23, with the funding gap set to triple in 2023-24.

The NCS Bill is essentially just about changing the way public services are delivered. Without proper funding, it will only pave the way for an even wider range of services to be outsourced.

Yet the Scottish government has turned somersaults of gymnastic proportions to get this extremely flawed Bill through the parliamentary process.

The original plans to take care and social work services out of councils have been ditched as unworkable.

Nonetheless, the Bill got through Stage 1 in Parliament because SNP MSPs and their allies were happy to vote for a Bill from which most of the provisions were being withdrawn, without seeing what the final version would look like. Now there’s a leap of faith.

It is currently consulting on a set of amendments that make the original unworkable Bill into a complete dog’s breakfast.

The process through which the government has brought forward its amendments has, if anything, stiffened opposition to the Bill from across Scottish society, from trade unions, to lived experience groups, to civic society, to employers’ organisations, including Cosla. The entire democratic process has had to be altered to accommodate further consultation and scrutiny.

And in the midst of all this is the proposal for a national social work agency (NSWA) — something many organisations, including Unison, think could have a lot to offer in terms of championing social work and enabling the profession to reclaim our unique professional identity.

A subgroup of an NSWA strategy group, of which I’m a member, has consulted with a wide range of social work staff on the front line about what needs to change to support social work in Scotland.

The findings of that survey echo the deep concerns expressed in Unison Scotland’s survey of adult care members, with a key message that social work needs proper investment urgently if it is to deliver a social work service fit for purpose. The group is clear that these findings must underpin the role of an NSWA worthy of its name.

There is no need for the public services cuts threatened by the Scottish government.

The STUC-commissioned paper, “Options for increasing taxes in Scotland to fund investment in public services” has already shown how reforms to the tax system which could be introduced now, would raise around £1.3bn of additional revenue.

An extra £2bn per year could be raised from a series of more complex reforms to the tax system, including replacing council tax with a proportional property tax.

This is all about political choice. If the Scottish government was really committed to improving social work and social care, it would follow its own PfG and invest in these public services.

Kate Ramsden is a retired social worker and member of Unison Scotland’s social work issues group.