The Community Care and Health (Scotland) Act 2002 (asp 5) amended section 12 of the Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968 (c. 49) by substituting subsections (3A) and (3B). The new subsections provide that an order may specify so much of a person’s resources as shall be disregarded by a local authority, or specify a way of calculating such resources as shall be disregarded, when deciding for the purposes of section 12 of the 1968 Act whether to make available assistance, by way of residential accommodation, to a person.

This Order specifies the resources that are to be disregarded for that purpose.

Where any person is to receive nursing care or a person aged 65 or over is to receive personal care, personal support or care of a kind mentioned in section 1(1)(c) of the 2002 Act, the entirety of that person’s resources shall be disregarded (article 2(1)).

Where a person is not to receive such care but a local authority proposes to enter into a deferred payment agreement, the person’s capital below the lower capital limit, being the amount first mentioned in regulation 28(1) of the National Assistance (Assessment of Resources) Regulations 1992 (“the Assessment Regulations”) (S.I. 1992/2977), is to be disregarded (article 2(2)).

In any other case, the person’s capital up to the capital limit as specified in regulation 20 of the Assessment Regulations is to be disregarded (article 2(3)).

The amount of capital shall be calculated in accordance with the Assessment Regulations (article 2(4)), subject to one exception, being that where a person is someone with whom the local authority proposes to enter into a deferred payment agreement, the local authority shall, in making that calculation, disregard that person’s main or only home (article 2(5)).