10.Section 2 gives the Scottish Ministers power by regulations to establish a scheme for sharing information to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of public health and social care services. The regulations will provide a lawful basis for information relevant to the delivery of those services to be shared.
11.In this context, a public health or social care service is one that is provided in exercise of certain statutory functions set out in subsection (3). The first category of functions mentioned in subsection (3) can broadly be described as publicly funded social care; these are the functions of a local authority that it can delegate to an integration authority under the Public Bodies (Joint Working) (Scotland) Act 2014. The second category of functions mentioned in subsection (3) can broadly be described as publicly funded health care; these are the functions of National Health Service health boards and special health boards which are largely (but not exclusively) set out in the National Health Service (Scotland) Act 1978. In many cases, particularly in the context of social care, the statutory functions set out in subsection (3) are exercised to commission services from the private or third sector. Services (for example a care home service) delivered by the private or third sector on that basis are nevertheless public health and social services for the purposes of section 2 because they are being delivered on behalf of a public-sector body as part of its discharging a statutory function mentioned in subsection (3).
12.Subsection (4) of section 2 underscores that an information-sharing scheme under subsection (1), which must have as its purpose enabling the sharing of information in order to make public health and social care services more efficient and effective, need not only be a scheme for sharing information between persons providing services directly to individuals. It might, for example, be a scheme requiring information to be shared with the Scottish Ministers in order to help them exercise their statutory function of ascertaining what numbers of social workers are required within Scotland (see section 58(1)(a) of the Regulation of Care (Scotland) Act 2001). The purpose for the Scottish Ministers exercising their powers under section 58(1)(a) of the Regulation of Care Act is to enable them to develop policies to ensure that there are sufficient numbers of social workers in order, ultimately, to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the delivery of health and social care services.
13.Regulations under section 2 will be subject to the affirmative procedure (see section 38).
Overview of the Act Overview of Part 1 Chapter 2: Information sharing schemes