Chapter 2 .Miscellaneous Amendments in Relation to Social Care Services, Social Care Workers and Local Authority Social Care Functions
Section 14 – Duty to submit and publish annual return
72.Section 14 amends section 10 of the 2016 Act which requires a service provider to submit an annual return to the Welsh Ministers who must then publish that return. Section 14 amends section 10 so that the provider (and not the Welsh Ministers) is required to publish its own annual return on its website, and to make a copy of that return available upon request. The amendments also provide that a service provider must publish its return within a time limit prescribed by the Welsh Ministers and that failure to do so is a summary offence punishable by a fine (see section 14(3) which amends section 48 of the 2016 Act).
Section 15 – Application for cancellation of service provider’s registration: information to be provided
73.Section 15 amends section 14 of the 2016 Act to provide the Welsh Ministers with the power to require that an application to cancel a service provider’s registration must contain prescribed information and be made in the prescribed form.
Section 16 – Cancellation and variation of service provider’s registration without application: notice procedures
74.Section 16 amends sections 13 and 15 of the 2016 Act, which set out the powers of the Welsh Ministers to vary a service provider’s registration (section 13) and cancel a service provider’s registration (section 15) subject to the improvement notice procedure (set out in sections 16 and 17 of the 2016 Act). Section 16 amends these sections such that the applicable notice procedure depends on the grounds on which the Welsh Ministers are proposing to vary or cancel the provider’s registration. As a result of these amendments, where variation or cancellation is on certain grounds in respect of which there is no improvement action that a service provider could be required to take, the notice of proposal procedure in section 18 of the 2016 Act will apply instead. This would apply, for example, where the service provider no longer provides a specific regulated service or the service provider no longer provides that regulated service at, from or in relation to a specific place.
Section 17 – Information, inspection and investigations
75.Section 17 amends Chapter 3 of the 2016 Act so that it makes further provision in relation to the Welsh Ministers’ powers to carry out inspections and investigations and to require the provision of information in relation to various functions they have under the 2016 Act, including in respect of investigating offences.
Section 18 – Meaning of social care worker: childcare workers
76.Section 18 amends section 79 of the 2016 Act to provide Welsh Ministers with the power by regulations to extend the definition of social care workers for the purpose of the 2016 Act to include childcare workers (including play workers).
77.Childcare workers are individuals who are employed by or work (including as agency workers) for a person registered under Part 2 of the Children and Families (Wales) Measure 2010 as a day care provider, to provide care and supervision to children.
Section 19 – Fitness to practise cases: powers to extend interim orders
78.Section 19 amends Chapter 4, of Part 6 of the 2016 Act which makes provision in respect of interim orders and review of interim orders in fitness to practise proceedings. Interim orders imposed by the regulator are a means to enable temporary restrictions to be applied to a registered person while investigations are undertaken into fitness to practise allegations made against the person. The amendment provides panel (interim orders panel or fitness to practise panel before which the interim order proceedings are brought) with the power to extend an interim order for up to 18 months in total, removing the need for applications to be made to the First-tier Tribunal for extensions which do not push the total length of the order beyond that limit. An application to the First-tier Tribunal will continue to be required where an interim order is to be extended beyond 18 months (see section 148 of the 2016 Act).
Section 20 – Direct payments in social care
79.Section 20 amends Part 4 of the 2014 Act so as to allow a local authority to make direct payments to a person (an individual or a body) nominated by an adult entitled to receive a direct payment under section 50 of the 2014 Act regardless of the whether that adult lacks capacity (within the meaning of the Mental Capacity Act 2005) to receive and manage the direct payments themselves.
80.The amendments made by section 20 are intended to ensure that all persons who are entitled to receive a direct payment under Part 4 of the 2014 Act (including payments made in respect of after-care services under section 117 of the Mental Health Act 1983) have the same entitlement to nominate a person to receive and manage the direct payments on their behalf whether or not they have mental capacity (or in the case of a child under the age of 16, the local authority is satisfied that the child has sufficient understanding to make an informed decision about consenting to receive a direct payment).
81.Those amendments insert new sections 49A and 53A into the 2014 Act and substitute sections 50, 51 and 52.
82.The new section 49A gives the Welsh Ministers power to make regulations which may require or allow a local authority to make direct payments but only where the relevant conditions specified in sections 50 (direct payments: conditions for payment to meet an adult’s needs), 51 (direct payments: conditions for payment to meet a child’s needs) or 52 (direct payments: conditions for payment to meet a carer’s needs) are met by the person who is entitled to receive care and support under Part 4 of the 2014 Act.
83.Section 20 also inserts new section 53A into Part 4 of the 2014 Act. This replaces existing provision made by section 53(11) which currently provides that regulations made under sections 50 and 51 may enable a local authority to discharge its duty to provide after-care services under section 117 of the Mental Health Act 1983 (“
84.Section 20 substitutes Schedule A1. New Schedule A1 sets out in full the conditions which must be met before a local authority may make direct payments in discharge of its duty to provide or secure services for a person entitled to after-care under section 117 of the 1983 Act (rather than by making modifications to the relevant provision in Part 4 of the 2014 Act). The substituted Schedule A1 contains provision that enable a person entitled to receive a direct payment in lieu of receiving after-care to nominate a person to receive the direct payments on their behalf.
Section 21 – Accommodation of children
85.Section 21 amends sections 76 and 81 of the 2014 Act to clarify the scope of references in those sections to “child arrangements orders”. The references were inserted as consequential amendments when residence orders (to which these provisions previously referred) were replaced by child arrangements orders (see section 12 and Schedule 2 of the Children and Families Act 2014 (c. 6)). However, child arrangements orders cover a wider range of matters than residence orders, and include contact arrangements for children. The Act therefore amends the references to “child arrangements orders” in sections 76 and 81 of the 2014 Act to clarify that reference to child arrangements orders only relate to those orders which specify the person with whom a child should live.
Section 22 – Social care: minor and consequential amendments
86.Section 22 introduces Schedule 1 which makes minor and consequential amendments in relation to the provisions in Part 1 of the Act, in respect of social care.
87.Paragraph 2(6) of Schedule 1 amends paragraph 1(4) of Schedule 1 to the 2016 Act to make it clear that the provision of accommodation and care to a child by a local authority constitutes a care home service.
