The Scottish Government has announced that this week the incredibly unpopular National Care Service proposals it has been trying to push through for three years are all but finally dead. None of those who opposed the legislation are celebrating.

This process has wasted a scandalous £27 million of public money.

But almost worse is the fact that all this time and energy has been wasted on this pointless vanity project at a time when care services in Scotland are on the brink of crisis.

We now face an uncertain future for care because put simply, there was no serious consideration of the real issues and what reform was needed because the politicians were instead determined to push through a managerialist centralisation of power against the will of everyone involved.

We cannot become immune to this kind of failure in Scotland. There are very serious questions to be asked about whether this money has been used appropriately and in line with the public interest.

Much of the spending has been wasted on what was in effect a manipulative political PR campaign to undermine opponents, to try and distract and divide them and to provide them with promise after promise which were subsequently broken.

If Scotland is to have any sense of public propriety and accountability, governments cannot be allowed to behave like this. We believe there must be an independent inquiry into this entire affair.

We do not have confidence in the effectiveness of slow-moving public inquiries and believe the best way for this to be done is for the Finance and Audit Committee of the Scottish Parliament to commission Audit Scotland to produce a detailed report with recommendations, reporting to the Committee.

It cannot be the case that you can waste £27 million on proposal you were told from the beginning would fail, shrug and move on. There should be consequences, but just as importantly, the public needs to know what happened. Carers and those who receive care should be furious and they deserve the truth.

Because what we are hearing from the Scottish Government is not truth.........

© Herald Scotland