Suspension of Coronavirus Act provisions that allow for easement of duties on Scottish local authorities to assess care and support needs

New statutory instrument

New regulations have been issued in Scotland that suspend provisions of the Coronavirus Act 2020 (the 2020 Act) relating to the easement of local authority duties to assess adult care and support needs.

In force from 30 November 2020, the Coronavirus Act 2020 (Suspension: Adult Social Care) (Scotland) Regulations 2020 (SSI.No.377/3030) partially suspend the operation of section 16 (duty of local authority to assess needs in Scotland) of the 2020 Act, insofar as it relates to adult social care and adult carers.

In particular, the regulations suspend -

• section 16(1) and (2) - which permit a local authority to dispense with its duty to conduct a needs assessments under section 12A of the Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968 if it would be impractical or cause delay in the provision of community care services;
• section 16(4)(a) and (b) - which permit a local authority to dispense with its duty to prepare an adult carer support plan under section 6 of the Carers (Scotland) Act 2016 (the 2016 Act) if it would be impractical or cause delay in the provision of support; and
• section 16(4)(e) - insofar as it relates to an adult carer so that a local authority is not required to comply with section 1 of the Social Care (Self-directed Support) (Scotland) Act 2013 insofar it relates to input into Part 2 and 3 of the 2016 Act.

NB - the policy note accompanying the regulations advises that section 16 could be brought back into effect for adult social care and adult carers by an order to revive the operation of a provision - under section 88(3) of the 2020 Act - should the response to the COVID-19 virus require this.

SSI.No.377/2020 is available from legislation.gov.uk