Commentary on Sections Part 6 –Social Care Workers: Fitness to Practise Chapter 7: Sections 159 – 164 - General and supplementary
205.The timely supply of relevant information is essential for the efficient and effective functioning of the fitness to practise process. Delays or refusal from registered persons or their employers to supply information could result in difficulty progressing and concluding cases. Section 160 enables SCW to require persons to produce information and, in the event of non-compliance, apply to the Tribunal for it to require disclosure of the information being withheld. Persons cannot, however, be required to produce information that is protected from disclosure by other legislation or rule of law. A request for information could not override anything barring disclosure contained in the Data Protection Act 1998, for example.
206.Section 161 requires SCW to publish all decisions made by fitness to practise panels and interim order panels, except decisions to take no further action. This also applies to decisions made on review. This is to ensure that the process is transparent and that the information is available to the public.
207.Section 163 provides that subject to the exceptions in subsection (3), a person is not to be treated as a registered person if he or she is subject to a suspension order despite the fact that his or her name still appears on the register. This will ensure that social workers subject to a suspension order cannot call themselves registered social workers or hold themsleves out as being registered.