61.Section 22 modifies section 64 of the Public Services Reform (Scotland) Act 2010 to enable the Scottish Ministers to prescribe by order circumstances in which Social Care and Social Work Improvement Scotland (commonly known as the Care Inspectorate) can move directly to proposing to cancel a care service’s registration without first issuing an improvement notice and waiting for the period specified in that notice to expire.
62.Section 47 of the Public Services Reform Act defines care services. Section 80 of that Act makes it a criminal offence to provide a care service without being registered with the Care Inspectorate. Under the Public Services Reform Act as enacted, the process for the Care Inspectorate to cancel a care service provider’s registration ordinarily requires first sending the provider an improvement notice under section 62, which warns the provider that unless there is a significant improvement within a period specified in the notice, the Care Inspectorate intends to cancel the registration. Only after that period has expired can the Care Inspectorate formally propose to cancel the registration under section 64. Where a formal proposal to cancel registration is made, the provider has 14 days in which to make representations to the Care Inspectorate (see section 72 of the Public Services Reform Act).
Overview of the Act Overview of Part 2 Cancellation of care service’s registration