National Care Service - governance and representation: co-design report

About Governance and representation

This design theme focuses on how lived experience can be embedded in the NCS, whether you have experience of:

• using social care, social work or community health services
• delivering these services
• making decisions about these services

When these co-design sessions were happening, our aim was to create a NCS board. This board would bring together people with lived experience and leaders from:

• Scottish Government
• local government
• NHS health boards

We initially thought the board would be a public body, with its own legal identity and functions. That meant that it would have a governance board with members who would make sure that the board delivered effectively.

Not everybody agreed with that approach. Ministers reflected on all feedback, so that they could decide how to continue the work.

On 23 January the Minister for Social Care, Mental Wellbeing and Sport set out a new approach.

It was decided to create an advisory board for the NCS, instead of creating a new public body. This will not be a public body established in law, the advisory board will not have a governance role or be able to take actions independently of ministers.

The board will still bring together leaders and people who have lived experience, to make improvements and ensure consistent, fair, high-quality services. The board will advise:

• ministers
• council leaders
• health boards
• integration authorities

They will advise these groups on where improvements can be made or how to take a different approach to get better outcomes for people using social work, social care and community health services.

It will take time to design and carry out a robust recruitment process for the board. However, ministers are keen to implement improvements suggested by the board as soon as possible. This is why we will establish an Interim Advisory Board which met in May 2025 and will run for 6 to 9 months. This means the board can start its work quickly, while we recruit members for the final board.

Through this co-design we wanted to know what people with lived experience thought about:

• who should be on the board
• how board members should be appointed
• skills and experience needed make sure members can do their role
• support and procedures needed for people to be members
• any training and development that board members might need

Although we are no longer establishing a public body with a governance board, lessons from this work are still relevant to the new Advisory Board. These lessons will be used to support recruitment for the interim board and the final board. So references made to the board can and will apply to both.