Commentary on Sections

Section 54 – Care and support plans and support plans

201.Section 54 provides that a local authority must prepare and maintain a care and support plan or a support plan for a person whose needs it is required to meet. The plans must be kept under review. If the local authority believes that a person’s circumstances have changed, it must conduct a new assessment and revise the plan.

202.Regulations must make provision about how the plan is prepared, what it must contain as well as what the review and revision arrangements are. The regulations must set out who can request a review of the plan (on their own behalf or on behalf of others), when the local authority must comply with a request for a review of the plan, and when it may refuse such a request. The section also sets out who must be involved in the preparation, review and revision of plans.

203.The process of preparing, reviewing or revising a care and support plan may link in with the preparation, etc. of plans by other bodies for the person in question.