Good afternoon, it’s a privilege to join you all today.

Most people in the room may have heard of COSLA, but for those who don’t know, we are the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities. We are a Councillor-led, cross-party organisation which represents all 32 Councils in Scotland. We work on the behalf of Councils to engage positively with Governments and national partners on policy, funding, legislation. As well as being COSLA’s Health & Social Care Spokesperson, I am the Councillor for Motherwell West in North Lanarkshire.

I understand part of the theme today is working together, and I know that’s a key mantra and benefit to the new NCS Interim Advisory Board. It draws together people with lived experience of accessing and delivering support, with providers, important third sector voices and public sector partners across social care, community health and social work. I give my thanks to the members of the Board, including Sandra, Susan and others, for the work they are doing to develop advice, suggest solutions and indeed critical challenge, all with the purpose of making sure services for people are stronger and more inclusive.

There’s undoubtedly a great deal of work we need to do, and I am thoughtful of that in reflecting on some of the discussions you have been involved in earlier today. Be that Self-Directed Support, where within a really challenging context, we need to ensure we are continuing to embed and protect choice and control for people. And we’re carrying this effort and opportunities through the likes of the National Social Work Agency and Scottish Social Work Partnership, of which COSLA, Scottish Government and Social Work Scotland are united in our efforts to strengthen the support for the social work profession.

I know too you have been discussing the important Right to Breaks for Carers which is on the horizon following the passing of the Care Reform Act. We know how important breaks are, both for carers and the people they care for, providing opportunities for carers to have a life outside of caring, to enjoy hobbies or interests, or even simply to rest. I know from a Local Government perspective, my Councillor colleagues have consistently, on a cross party basis, offered the firmest support for carers and for the new Right to Breaks, and it’s vital now that we are doing the ground work to prepare the system, Local Government, local carer centres, breaks providers and others, to ensure we can deliver on the ambition set out in the legislation, and that carers can receive the support they deserve.

On the theme of working together, however, a big part of what we need to do is shift the narrative on social care and support. A key goal of integration was to prioritise early intervention and prevention, to shift the balance of care and support in Scotland, to ensure support is offered in communities and in people’s homes, rather than in a hospital. This is a key part of the joint Scottish Government & COSLA Population Health Framework & Service Renewal Framework, of which we are working to deliver upon in partnership. Ultimately, we wish to see people enabled to live full lives within their own homes, with personalised support, with choice and control over their lives.

There can be no doubt that progress has been made on this front, but we have not gone far enough on shifting the balance of care, towards prevention.

We have not yet seen social care support valued on an equal footing with health. We have not seen it, and we are not yet seeing it, with local partnerships facing a shortfall this year of nearly 500 million pounds.  The effect of this, is the continued tightening of support available to people with respect to social care support, which is having real impacts now on people, on carers, on social care workers and social workers, as well as third sector partners and providers. But this will also have longer term impacts in terms of worsening health and outcomes for people too.

We need to make the positive case, together, that social care must and should be seen on an equal footing to enable disabled people to flourish and fulfil their rights, to ensuring social care workers are well supported in their roles with an offer of good pay and conditions, as well as demonstrating and articulating the positive impact a good social care support system has on local economies.

As a society, across Scotland we face difficult challenges, though we also have opportunities and choices ahead of us too. There are opportunities for us to work more effectively together, to strengthen local health and social care integration and work on a more joined up basis with people and their families, independent support organisations, providers, disabled people’s organisations, carers and carer centres, amongst others. There are opportunities for us to ensure the effective join up between national policy and legislation with local delivery, implementation and flexibilities – building on the existing partnership between national and local government.

There are also choices and decisions we have to make. This includes how we shift the balance of care and sufficiently prepare for changing demographics in our population. But also, it includes choices in the role we hold for social care in society. I know people in this room, either directly, through a loved one, or through a professional capacity, will have had experiences of social care support and Local Government services. I know that there is excellent support being offered by dedicated and hard-working professionals across Scotland who go above and beyond to ensure person-centred care, but I know too that others may have had more challenging experiences in getting access to the care they wish to see. There’s no simple fix to this, and a coordinated effort is required, but I do wish to return here to the matter of choices. We can choose to elevate social care, as a society. We can choose to shift the paradigm, and put it front and centre of a positive articulation of what Scotland and its local communities can and should be built around. Human rights, well-valued work, independent living, care and support.

This includes choices for Local Government. Ensuring the priority of funding for social care is the key ask and ambition of both COSLA’s engagement around the national budget setting this year & looking ahead to the Scottish Parliament elections next year, and this is really important as national funding makes up more than 3/5s of the income to Local Government. Councillors across Scotland are united, we need to make different choices, we cannot continue on our current trajectory, we must and should ensure social care is valued on an equal footing with health.

I believe the time is now for us to collectively make this choice and positive case.

21st November 2025