About 50,000 people receive free care at home

Figures show the full year budget of �126m was spent in the first nine months of the flagship policy scheme.

Almost 40,000 elderly people receive the service at home and more than 8,000 receive free care in a care home.

Scotland's auditor general said that poor record-keeping by local councils would make it difficult to project future costs.

The number of people receiving the service at home has risen by 74% since the policy was introduced two years ago.

The auditor general, Robert Black, said that gaps in record-keeping made it difficult to estimate how much the policy would cost in the future

He also complained of a similar lack of information on direct payments to OAPs in their own homes and to the rapid response units being operated by some councils.

Free personal and nursing care is one of devolution's major successes. Tom McCabe MSP Deputy Health Minister

The executive said it remained "absolutely committed" to delivering free care and that it would commission research to monitor the "uptake and impact".

Deputy Health Minister Tom McCabe said: "Free personal and nursing care is one of devolution's major successes.

"In the two years since this policy was implemented, more than 48,000 pensioners have benefited from the security and dignity free personal care provides.

"We have invested �250m over two years to bring free personal care to some of our most vulnerable and frail elderly people.

Spending prioritised

"There was always free personal care for some people but the money we have put in means that there is now free personal care for all.

"As expected, almost all local authorities experienced a significant increase in the number of people claiming free personal care at home and prioritised their spending according to demand and their local circumstances."

Claims that the budget for cancer treatment was raided to fund free personal care for the elderly were dismissed earlier this year by the Health Minister, Malcolm Chisholm.

His intervention came after former education minister Sam Galbraith branded the policy as a "ticking time bomb" which should be scrapped.

Mr Galbraith said that Scotland's ageing population meant other services would have to be cut to pay for care.

First Minister Jack McConnell insisted at the time free personal care for the elderly was a "long-term commitment" by the Scottish Executive and he said that it would be properly financed well into the future.