Liberal Democrats claim victory in scrapping costly social care centralisation

The SNP Government have at last admitted defeat and scrapped the damaging and costly centralisation proposals for local community care – but only after incurring costs of over £30 million. 

Councillor Robert Brown, Leader of the Liberal Democrat Group on South Lanarkshire Council,welcomed the decision which, he said, followed a long Liberal Democrat campaign against the Scottish Government’s attempts to centralise care services in Scotland.

Robert Brown said: 

“I cannot recall anything done by the Scottish Government which was so ill-conceived and so potentially costly. Instead of providing much needed additional funding to local care services in South Lanarkshire and across Scotland, the SNP Government were prepared to spend over £1.4 billion on a new and unnecessary bureaucracy. 

Liberal Democrats were the first to condemn the idea and demand proper funding for local care services. Why the SNP Government thought that distant bureaucrats and Ministers in Edinburgh could run local care services better than people on the ground in South Lanarkshire is beyond my comprehension.

I am pleased that the SNP Government have now been forced to scrap the idea, albeit after wasting over £30 million so far on promoting it. £30 million would pay the salaries of 1200 care workers for a year. That money has simply gone down the drain.

Now our Budget negotiations in Edinburgh have led to increased funding for local care services. There is much more to do but it starts to make up for the time and money wasted by the SNP Government on their ill-conceived care power-grab.”