The Personal Community Charge (Exemption for the Severely Mentally Impaired) (Scotland) Regulations 1989

Explanatory Note

(This Note is not part of the Regulations)

These Regulations prescribe certain matters relating to the exemption of persons who are severely mentally impaired from liability to pay the personal community charge and the personal community water charge.

Under paragraph 4 of Schedule 1A to the Abolition of Domestic Rates Etc. (Scotland) Act 1987 (c. 47) ( “the 1987 Act”) as inserted by paragraph 35 of Schedule 12 to the Local Government Finance Act 1988 (c. 41), a person is exempt from liability to pay the personal community charge if he fulfils one or more conditions mentioned in paragraph 4(2), he is severely mentally impaired within the meaning of paragraph (3) and he is stated to be such in a certificate from a doctor. This paragraph is applied in relation to community water charges by paragraph 11 of Schedule 5 to the 1987 Act. It was also amended by paragraph 12 of Schedule 6 to the Local Government and Housing Act 1989 (c. 42) ( “the 1989 Act”).

Regulation 3 of these Regulations further amends the conditions mentioned in paragraph 4(2) of the said Schedule 1A, as amended by the Personal Community Charge (Exemptions) (Scotland) Regulations 1989 (SI 1989/63). This Regulation extends the list of qualifying benefits so as to enable a person to qualify for exemption if he is entitled to attendance allowance or constant attendance allowance. It also dele tes the condition relating to pensionable age so that it is no longer possible for a person to qualify for exemption merely because he has reached that age. However, it does enable a person, who was exempt immediately before the coming into force of the Regulations (which would include a peson who had qualified because he was, for example, of pensionable age), to continue to be exempt.

Regulation 4 of these Regulations substitutes a new definition for the definition of severe mental impairment in paragraph 4(3) of that Schedule. The new definition defines a person as being severely mentally impaired if he has severe impairment of intelligence and social functioning from whichever cause which appears to be permanent. It does not refer to any specific causes for this condition unlike the previous definition which restricted persons who were severely mentally impaired to persons who had this condition because they were suffering from a state of arrested or incomplete development of mind or an injury to the brain.

Regulation 5 of these Regulations provides that a doctor’s certificate which was given to a person who is suffering from severe mental impairment within the meaning of the old definition in force immediately before the coming into force of these Regulations should continue to have effect notwithstanding the change in the definition.

Regulation 6 provides that, in certain circumstances, a person who is not within the old definition of severely mentally impaired but who comes within the new definition of that expression may be treated as having been exempt from a date prior to the coming into force of the Regulations. This is in pursuance of paragraph 4(7) of Schedule 1A to the 1987 Act, as inserted by paragraph 12 of Schedule 6 to the 1989 Act.