Time limited conditions expiration (Added 25 September 2020)

We are aware that many of you will have time limited conditions that were applied to your existing registration, to allow you to provide care services in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Many of these time limited conditions will be due to expire soon. We would like to remind you that if you wish to extend or amend the previous agreement (as detailed in the time limited condition), you are required to submit a variation for assessment.

This can be done through eForms.

If you no longer require the time limited condition, and wish for this to be removed from your registration certificate, please submit a variation for its removal.

Deferment of continuation of Registration Fees (added 8 April 2020)

The Care Inspectorate and Scottish Government recognise the financial and other pressures that providers of care services are currently under.  To support service providers and assist with alleviating cash flow problems service providers are encountering at this difficult time the Care Inspectorate will delay the collection of continuation of registration fees due by care services until July 2020. We will review this position again in June 2020 before any fee collections are made.

This will mean care service providers need not pay any balance of the fees due for the 2019/20 financial year until July 2020.

Service providers normally due to receive fee invoices in April 2020 will not receive an invoice for the 2020/21 financial year until July 2020 (position subject to review in June 2020).

We are happy to make arrangements with service providers that would prefer not to defer the balance of 2019/20 fees.  We are issuing more detailed guidance directly to care service providers.   

Staffing in services during coronavirus outbreak (updated 20 March 2020)

Child to adult ratios feature in our registration and inspection of early learning and childcare (ELC). However, for other service types, including care homes, the Care Inspectorate stopped issuing staffing schedules at the point of registering a service in 2018. Instead, we expect the staffing numbers, and skills and experience of staff to reflect the needs of people who use services. 

At this extremely challenging time, we will support all services in their need to apply flexibility and judgement around staffing to ensure the safety and wellbeing of people using the service. We recognise that services will need to be creative and make use of a wider range of resources. This could potentially include staff from other public services and volunteers. We recognise that this will mean services may not be able to undertake all normal recruitment checks as quickly and easily as they did before. 

However, during this period it is important that providers put in place structures to support and oversee staff in their role, including any volunteers and unregistered staff. The Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC) is responsible for registering the social care workforce. People can work in registrable roles for a period of 12 months without being registered, which enables services to adopt a flexible approach.

This highlights the six-month period after starting work to obtain registration. This applies to:

  • new staff you might recruit
  • workers covering other roles due to staff shortages
  • students who seek work to help with shortages.