Towards a Scotland That Cares: a New National Outcome on Care for the National Performance Framework

Chloe Maclean*, Hartwig Pautz, Stephen Gibb, Nicola Hay

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Book/ReportOther reportpeer-review

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Abstract

The Scottish Government introduced the National Performance Framework (NPF) in 2007. It measures, through eleven National Outcomes such as health, poverty, environment and education, ‘how Scotland is doing’ while at the same time describing ‘the kind of Scotland’ that the Scottish Government wishes to create. Each Outcome is measured by a number of Indicators and associated data sets.
The NPF will, in 2022, start to undergo a comprehensive review process. This process is a major opportunity for Scotland to anchor a new Outcome specifically on care in its performance framework – this would make Scotland one of the first countries to do so. Such a new Outcome would publicly and transparently measure whether Scotland is a ‘country that cares’ – with respect to its many care workers (including in adult social care and childcare), unpaid carers (including parents and guardians) and those experiencing care. This is particularly important within the context of the Covid-19 crisis and how it made visible the problems concerning care in its unpaid and paid forms.
Over recent years, a significant range of welcome policy has been developed in Scotland relating to diverse aspects of care, yet what is missing is an integrated National Outcome that pulls this together. In this report, we propose a detailed blueprint for a new National Outcome
on care, using insights gained from research literature and existing practice from around the world. Importantly, we incorporated what stakeholders (unpaid carers; care workers; people experiencing care; representatives of organisations involved in providing, financing, monitoring care or in supporting care recipients or providers; and academic experts) – told us in consultative interviews about the desirable form of a new Outcome on care. Given the relatively small number of interviews, we make no claim that the views captured are representative of those groups we spoke to. However, we are convinced that our blueprint will be valuable for the review process of the NPF starting in 2022.

The National Outcome Statement on care we propose is:

‘We fully value and invest in those experiencing care and all those providing it’.

By adopting a new National Outcome on care, bolstered by a robust monitoring framework through the Indicators presented as above, Scotland would be in a significantly improved position to measure whether it is valuing, and investing in all those experiencing and providing care. The new Outcome should be seen in context with the proposed ‘National Care Service’ for Scotland with its focus on paid care and paid care workers. The Outcome as we propose it in this report encompasses all forms of care in Scotland and includes all who provide care and those experiencing care.
Original languageEnglish
Place of PublicationPaisley
PublisherUWS-Oxfam Partnership
Number of pages39
Publication statusPublished - 30 Nov 2021

Publication series

NameUWS-Oxfam Partnership: Collaborative Research Reports Series
PublisherUWS-Oxfam Partnership
No.10

Keywords

  • care
  • national performance
  • policymaking
  • outcomes

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