Health and Social Care (Wales) Act 2025

Regulation of social care services: registration etc. of social care services providers

14 Duty to submit and publish annual return

(1) Subsections (2) and (3) amend the 2016 Act—

(a) to change the requirement in section 10, for the Welsh Ministers to publish an annual return submitted by a service provider, to a requirement that the service provider must publish such a return and make copies of it available on request, and

(b) to make failure to publish an annual return an offence.

(2) In section 10 of the 2016 Act—

(a) in subsection (1), for the words from “submit” to the end substitute “, following the end of each financial year during which the provider is registered—

(a) submit an annual return to the Welsh Ministers;

(b) publish that return on its website.”;

(b) after subsection (1) insert—

“(1A) A service provider must make available, on request, a copy of an annual return published on its website.”

(c) after subsection (4) insert—

“(4A) An annual return must be published within the prescribed time limit.

(4B) But if disclosure of information contained in the annual return is prohibited by any enactment or other rule of law, that information must be redacted from the annual return before it is published.”;

(d) omit subsection (5).

(3) In section 48 of the 2016 Act—

(a) in the heading, after “submit” insert “or publish”;

(b) for the words from “fail” to the end substitute “—

(a) fail to submit an annual return to the Welsh Ministers within the time limit prescribed under section 10(4), or

(b) fail to publish an annual return on its website within the time limit prescribed under section 10(4A).”

15 Application for cancellation of service provider’s registration: information to be provided

(1) Subsection (2) amends the 2016 Act to confer a power on the Welsh Ministers to prescribe the information that is to be provided with an application a service provider makes to cancel the provider’s registration under the Act.

(2) In section 14 of the 2016 Act, after subsection (1) insert—

“(1A) An application under subsection (1) must—

(a) contain such information as the Welsh Ministers may prescribe;

(b) be in the prescribed form.”

16 Cancellation and variation of service provider’s registration without application: notice procedures

(1) Subsections (2) and (3) amend the 2016 Act to apply the notice of proposal procedure (see section 18 of that Act), rather than the improvement notice procedure (see section 16 of that Act), to the variation or cancellation of a service provider’s registration by the Welsh Ministers in certain circumstances where no improvement is possible.

(2) In section 13 of the 2016 Act—

(a) omit subsection (2);

(b) in subsection (4), after paragraph (b) insert—

“(ba) the responsible individual designated in respect of that place, or any other person, has been convicted of, or has been given a caution in respect of, a relevant offence in connection with a regulated service provided by the service provider at, from or in relation to that place,”;

(c) after subsection (4) insert—

“(4A) For the purposes of subsection (4)(ba) a relevant offence is an offence listed in section 15(2).”

(d) in subsection (5), for the words from “subsection (3)” to the end substitute “this section unless—

(a) in the case of variation under subsection (1), (3)(a) or (4)(a), the requirements of sections 18 and 19 are met;

(b) in the case of variation under subsection (3)(b), (4)(b), (ba) or (c), the requirements of sections 16 and 17 are met.”;

(e) after subsection (5) insert—

“(6) But nothing in subsection (5) affects the power of the Welsh Ministers to urgently vary a registration under section 23.”

(3) In section 15 of the 2016 Act—

(a) in subsection (1)—

(i) after paragraph (b) insert—

“(ba) the service provider has been convicted of, or has been given a caution in respect of, a relevant offence in connection with a regulated service that they provide;”;

(ii) in paragraph (d), for “the service provider or a responsible individual” substitute “a responsible individual other than the service provider (see section 21(2)(a))”;

(b) in subsection (2), for “subsection (1)(d)” substitute “subsection (1)(ba), (d)”;

(c) in subsection (3), for the words from “the requirements” to the end substitute “—

(a) in the case of‍ cancellation on the grounds set out in subsection (1)(a), (b) or (ba), the requirements of sections 18 and 19 are met;

(b) in the case of‍ cancellation on the grounds set out in subsection (1)(c), (d), (e) or (f), the requirements of sections 16 and 17 are met.”;

(d) after subsection (3) insert—

“(4) But nothing in subsection (3) affects the power of the Welsh Ministers to urgently cancel a registration under section 23.”