The three candidates to be Scotland’s next first minister have been urged to put plans for a National Care Service on hold ahead of the election result.

The result of the race to replace SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon between former community minister Ash Regan, finance secretary Kate Forbes and health secretary Humza Yousaf, will be announced on Monday.

All three candidates have signalled their intention to look again at the plans with legislation having been delayed until after the election in June.

The proposals, which have been widely opposed by care leaders, trade unions and opposition parties, involve shifting control of social care from councils to ministers in order to provide a consistent level of service access through one large public body divided into regional boards similar to the NHS.

The cost of the plans has been estimated at up to £1.2 billion over five years.

Renaissance Care executive chairman Robert Kilgour told Caring Times: “The Scottish government’s NCS plans should be put on hold and to one side by the new first minister/health & social care minister until they put more meat on the bones about how the NCS would actually work in practice and also they need to finally seriously engage in genuine discussions with all involved stakeholders.

“What is urgently needed is for the Scottish government to better fund Scottish local authorities with a ‘ring fenced’ increase in social care funding – increased front line funding for social care not increased bureaucracy!”

Scottish Conservative social care minister Craig Hoy said the new first minister should “drop the National Care Service and commit to spending every penny on local services instead”.

Hoy said the plans to centralise care services were “reckless and unaffordable”.