Eligibility criteria widened for the Social Care Staff Support Fund in Scotland

New statutory instrument

New regulations have been issued in Scotland to widen the eligibility criteria for the Social Care Staff Support Fund.

In force from 24 December 2020, the Social Care Staff Support Fund (Coronavirus) (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2020 (SI.No.469/2020) are designed to provide access to the Fund to relevant social care workers who were shielding during the period March to October 2020, or who were assessed by NHS Inform as being 'higher risk' and agreed with their employer that they could not safely carry out their duties, where their employer did not apply to the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme.

NB - launched in June 2020, the Fund was established to ensure that eligible social care workers do not experience financial hardship as a result of being ill with coronavirus or because of needing to self-isolate in line with Scottish NHS guidance.

Provided all the other eligibility criteria in regulations 3(2) to (4) of the Social Care Staff Support Fund (Coronavirus) (Scotland) Regulations 2020 are met, the new regulations provide that relevant social care workers will also now be eligible to receive financial assistance from the Fund where -

• they have or had a condition or are receiving treatment for a condition which is listed in a new Schedule 1 and have been advised to shield themselves from the public; or
• they have or had a condition or status listed in a new Schedule 2 and, following a risk assessment undertaken with their employer, both the worker and employer have agreed that they cannot work with suitable protection from coronavirus.

NB - Schedule 1 reflects the 'extremely high risk' NHS Inform category, while Schedule 2 reflects the 'higher risk' category.

The new regulations also provide -

• for the amount that the newly eligible categories of workers can claim to be capped at 80 per cent of their expected income, to ensure parity with workers paid in line with the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme; and
• for the Scottish Ministers to be able to appoint any person to administer the Fund, or any particular parts of the Fund for different purposes, on their behalf. (The previous position was that Ministers could only appoint a local authority or integration authority to do this.)

SI.No.469/2020 is available from legislation.gov.uk