Contents
- Attendance
- Interests
- NHS Governance
- Subordinate Legislation
Subordinate Legislation
Public Bodies (Joint Working) (Prescribed Local Authority Functions etc) (Scotland) Amendment (No 2) Regulations 2017 [Draft]
Item 3 is consideration of an affirmative instrument—the draft Public Bodies (Joint Working) (Prescribed Local Authority Functions etc) (Scotland) Amendment (No 2) Regulations 2017. As is usual with affirmative instruments, we will have an evidence-taking session on the instrument with the minister and her officials.
I welcome to the meeting Aileen Campbell, who is the Minister for Public Health and Sport, and, from the Scottish Government, Peter Stapleton, carers policy; Brian Nisbet, health and social care integration; and Ruth Lunny, who is a lawyer.
I invite the minister to make a brief opening statement.
I thank the committee for giving me the opportunity to speak about the regulations—[Interruption.] I could hear you in stereo, convener.
I thought it was a heckler.
Members will all be aware that, when the Parliament passed the Carers (Scotland) Act 2016 in February last year, the integration of health and social care was already under way across Scotland. As the committee will recall, the purpose of the Public Bodies (Joint Working) (Prescribed Local Authority Functions etc) Regulations 2014 (SSI 2014/345) is to provide for the mandatory delegation of adult social care functions to integration authorities so that those functions must form part of their strategic commissioning plan for delivering health and social care services locally. We have put forward the draft regulations to further amend the principal regulations so that they take account of the provisions in the 2016 act in the same way.
If approved, the regulations will remove section 3 of the Social Care (Self-directed Support) (Scotland) Act 2013 from the schedule to the Public Bodies (Joint Working) (Scotland) Act 2014, because that provision will be repealed by the Carers (Scotland) Act 2016 when it comes fully into force on 1 April next year.
In addition, the regulations will prescribe the functions that are conferred on a local authority under sections 6, 24, 25, 31, 34 and 35 of the 2016 act as ones that must be delegated to integration authorities. Those sections cover a range of local authority functions in relation to carers. For example, section 6 will require integration authorities to offer and prepare an adult carer support plan for identified adult carers. Section 31 will require that they prepare a local carer strategy that will outline how carers will be identified and supported in their local communities.
It is important to note that, in line with existing integration legislation, the requirement to delegate those functions applies only in so far as they are exercisable in relation to adult social care. Delegation of those functions in the context of children’s social care remains a matter for local decision.
I will not detail all the functions under the 2016 act that must be delegated, as they are laid out in the supporting policy note for the regulations, but I want to emphasise that the prescription of those functions will ensure that there is legislative synergy between the carers and the public bodies legal frameworks and will allow functions that stem from the 2016 act to be carried out in an integrated health and social care context.
Supporting those changes will allow integration authorities to continue with their strategic planning and commissioning priorities and will ensure that objectives to improve outcomes for carers that we as a Parliament put in place when we supported the passage of the 2016 act can be taken forward as an integral part of the integration of health and social care.
I again thank the committee for allowing me to give evidence, and I would be happy to take questions on the regulations.
Do members have any questions?
There being none, we move to item 4, which is the formal debate on motion S5M-09005. I remind the committee that members should not put questions to the minister during the debate and that officials may not speak in the debate. I invite the minister to move the motion.
Motion moved,
That the Health and Sport Committee recommends that the Public Bodies (Joint Working) (Prescribed Local Authority Functions etc.) (Scotland) Amendment (No. 2) Regulations 2017 be approved.—[Aileen Campbell]
As no member wants to speak in the debate and the minister has indicated that she does not want to sum up, the question is, that motion S5M-09005 be agreed to.
Motion agreed to.
I suspend the meeting to allow the minister to leave.
11:42 Meeting suspended.11:46 On resuming—
Public Bodies (Joint Working) (Prescribed Health Board Functions) (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2017 (SSI 2017/381)
Item 5 is consideration of a negative instrument. No motion to annul has been lodged, and the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee has not made any comments on the instrument. Do members have any comments?
There being none, that is agreed. Thank you very much.
As agreed at a previous meeting, we now move into private session.
11:46 Meeting continued in private until 12:28.Previous
NHS Governance