On 13th January 2026, the Scottish Government announced the 2026-2027 draft budget. The budget focuses on building a stronger NHS, supporting families facing cost of living pressures, and investment in social care. The budget includes:
- £17.6bn allocated to NHS Scotland, including primary and community care.
- £2.3bn allocated to social care.
- A 2% increase to local government budgets.
- Inflationary increases to devolved social security payments, including those specific to unpaid carers.
We welcome the Scottish Government’s continued commitment to public services and to supporting families during a period of sustained economic pressure. The inclusion of inflationary increases to devolved social security payments, including those supporting unpaid carers, is an important step in helping households manage rising costs.
However, this budget falls short of delivering the targeted investment that unpaid carers and the organisations that support them urgently need. Despite the central role unpaid carers play in sustaining Scotland’s health and social care system, there is no clear commitment to:
- Increasing investment to short breaks and the right to a break.
- Investing in local carer support organisations working with unpaid carers of all ages and other protected characteristics.
- Making meaningful progress towards the abolition of social care charging.
As pressure on the health and social care system mounts, unpaid carers and third sector organisations face significant challenges, including financial pressures and more intense caring situations. We feel the commitments made in this budget could go further to ensuring unpaid carers and supporting organisations experience improved and sustainable support.
With three in five people in Scotland likely to become an unpaid carer during their lifetime, supporting unpaid carers is not optional; it is essential. While there are welcome elements within the budget, it does not yet go far enough to ensure unpaid carers and the services that support them can thrive, rather than simply cope.
About the National Carer Organisations
The National Carer Organisations in Scotland are Carers Trust Scotland, Carers Scotland, Coalition of Carers in Scotland, MECOPP, Shared Care Scotland and the Scottish Young Carers Services Alliance.
Together we have a shared vision that all Scotland’s unpaid carers will feel valued, included and supported as equal partners in the provision of care. We aim to achieve this through the representation of unpaid carers and giving them a voice at a national level.
We believe we can deliver more for unpaid carers by working together to share our knowledge and experience, and by focusing our collective efforts on achieving improvements in areas of policy and practice that are of greatest concern to unpaid carers.
Contacts
- Paul Traynor, Carers Trust Scotland: ptraynor@carers.org
- Kate Hogarth, Shared Care Scotland: kate.hogarth@sharedcarescotland.com
- Jenni McNab, Shared Care Scotland: jenni.mcnab@sharedcarescotland.com
- Fiona Collie, Carers Scotland: fiona.collie@carerscotland.org
- Joe McCready, Carers Scotland: joe.mccready@carerscotland.org
- James Calder, MECOPP: james@mecopp.org.uk
- Shubhanna Hussain, Coalition of Carers in Scotland: shubhanna@carersnet.org