Adults with incapacity

Part 4 of the Adults with Incapacity (Scotland) Act 2000 (the Act) allows care home managers to apply to the Care Inspectorate to manage money for service users in certain circumstances, these are:

• that the service is an authorised establishment
• the adult is a resident with incapacity
• that the resident has less than £10,000 (usually)
• the manager of home takes certain steps to manage finances
• money is not derived from benefits.

AWI application form

This form is in two parts. It allows a manager of an authorised establishment to:

1. Notify the Care Inspectorate that they intend to manage a resident’s financial affairs.
2. Apply for a Certificate of Authority to withdraw and spend the resident’s funds.

Detailed information about managing residents’ finances is available in the Code of Practice for Managers under Part 4 of the Act (the Code)

As a result of the UK Government’s emergent Welfare Reform, references to a number of UK wide benefits identified within the codes have required to be up-dated.  

Appendix 1 of the codes refers to particular benefits which cannot be managed under the act. An update of some named benefits was necessary to reflect changes throughout the UK legislation.

In addition, some changes have been made to the examples of goods and services which can be purchased through the use of personal funds, as set out in Appendix 6.

It is very important that you have fully considered the code before completing this form. We need detailed information in order to be satisfied about the steps you have taken before reaching a decision to manage a resident’s finances. Once completed, please send this form to your local Care Inspectorate office with a Certificate of Incapacity completed by a medical practitioner.

You can download a copy of the application form here.

AWI Register

Instructions for use of the AWI Register for Managers

• Click on AWI Register
• Save and file to your computer/server
• Add in the name of your service
• Save copy
• Enter information relating to the interventions in place under Adults with Incapacity (Scotland) Act 2000 in the appropriate page.
• A DWP appointeeships section is included, should you wish to use this section.
• Ensure that the most recent copy of the register is available for inspectors at inspection.

Change of manager where there are Certificates of Authority

When there is a change of manager, we should be informed as soon as is possible. The outgoing manager must ensure that the resident has sufficient funds in place while an application to vary the Certificate of Authority is made.  

The new manager must apply for a new Certificate of Authority using the specified form.

Download a copy of the application to vary form here.

Transfer/move of a resident with a Certificate of Authority to another care service

When a resident who has a Certificate of Authority moves from one care home to another, the manager must do the following:

• inform the Care Inspectorate
• inform the care home to which the resident is going
• inform the local authority/care manager
• check that the care home service to which they are moving is an Authorised Established and not Opted Out (see guidance on Opt Out)
• inform the fund holder.

Managers’ continued involvement after resident moves/transfers 

When an incapable resident ceases to be in an authorised establishment, the manager of the establishment must continue to manage his/her affairs for an interim period of up to 3 months. This allows time for other arrangements, new certificate of authority to be applied for or the certificate to be revoked.  

The need for the manager to continue their role should be considered by the multi-disciplinary team overseeing he resident’s care planning.

The manager must provide the new care service with the resident’s financial records and statements, and return the Certificate of Authority once this is done. 

The manager of the service to which the resident has moved to must then make a new application for a Certificate of Authority.

Death of a resident where there is a Certificate of Authority

When a resident dies and there is a Certificate of Authority in place the manager must take the following steps:

• notify the Care Inspectorate immediately
• notify the fundholder
• prepare a statement of accounts for the resident
• return the Certificate of Authority along with the statement of accounts.

Procedure to be followed where a care home closes or registration is cancelled

Where a care home closes voluntarily or through enforcement action, and there are Certificates of Authority in place, the following must be done:

• All Certificates of Authority must be returned to the Care Inspectorate.
• The financial records and statements of the resident(s) must be forwarded to the new care home, where the resident is to be cared for.

Please refer to information above on the movement/transfer of residents where there is a Certificate of Authority. 

Guidance on the Payment of Fees to Doctors under Part 4 of the Adults with Incapacity (Scotland) Act 2000

Under the Adults with Incapacity (Scotland) Act 2000 (the Act) doctors may carry out an assessment of an individual to assess capacity.

Capacity is defined within the Adults with Incapacity (Scotland) Act 2000 as being incapable of:

• acting; or
• making decisions; or
• communicating decisions; or
• understanding decisions; or
• retaining memory of decisions,

by reason of mental disorder or of an inability to communicate because of physical disability. Where a doctor has made an assessment of capacity, and deems that person not to have capacity, a certificate of incapacity will be issued under Part 4 of the Act. This certificate is valid for 3 years.

Fees

A fee may be charged by the doctor carrying out the assessment of capacity and this can be taken from the funds of the adult.

Useful Links

Scottish Government

Mental Welfare Commission

The Office of the Public Guardian 

Inspection during Covid-19

Covid-19 inspection safety precautions for early learning and childcare services including childminders (Added 29 April 2021)

We are committed to carrying out our inspections safely, and we take our responsibility to the welfare of children and staff in your service very seriously.  We have worked with Public Health Scotland to ensure our inspection process is as safe as it possibly can be. 

All our staff have had infection prevention and control training that includes minimising the risk of contact and the safe use of personal protective equipment (PPE).  Our inspectors are undertaking twice weekly testing and are required to have a negative lateral flow test before visiting a service. If the test is positive, they self-isolate and arrange to undertake a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test.   No inspector will visit a service if they have any of the recognised symptoms of Covid-19.

We have amended our processes to minimise the time we need to spend in your service carrying out key tasks.  We will carry out some activities remotely, such as interviews with staff or parents.

When our inspectors are in your service, they will maintain physical distancing from your staff and each other and wear moisture resistance face masks.  You may see your inspector change these across the time they are in your service.  They will wash their hands regularly and carry supplies of hand sanitiser where hand washing may be more difficult, such as in outdoor areas.

Inspectors will limit the items they bring into your service and will use their tablets to record and photograph information rather than taking paper copies.

Inspections of services for children and young people (except childminders) (Added 27 April 2021)

We suspended our normal inspection programme in March 2020 in response to Scottish Government national restrictions on movement put in place to help suppress the spread of Covid-19. We maintained close contact with services across the country, providing advice and guidance to help providers continue to deliver services through a time of unprecedented challenge.

During the autumn and winter we recommenced our inspection programme on a revised basis. We carried out as much activity as possible remotely, using digital and other means. We undertook assurance activity to respond proportionately to any concerns and continued to make visits to services wherever we judged it was necessary to gain assurance about children’s wellbeing.

We have now revised our inspection priorities for 2021-22. They will be determined taking into account a number of factors including:

• intelligence which gives us cause for concern or suggests there are areas requiring further exploration. Intelligence may come from notifications or from a failure to comply with the notification system, and from complaints or relevant information provided by other bodies;
• inspection history, particularly where the last inspection identified significant areas for improvement and where we now need to assess the extent to which improvements have been made;
• services which have not been inspected since registration with the Care Inspectorate;
• inspection frequency timescales.

For all high and medium risk services, we aim to carry out on-site visits to engage in fieldwork, gain assurance about the wellbeing of children and young people and assess how their needs are being met. We will work sensitively with services to ensure this is done safely, in a way which reduces risks for everyone. Inspection feedback will continue to be provided through a virtual meeting.

For all other services, we will continue to carry out as much activity as possible remotely, using digital and other means. We are asking services for continued cooperation and support in providing documentary evidence timeously and facilitating conversations between inspectors and children, families, staff and other stakeholders. This helps us to complete inspections without undue delays.  We will continue to make visits to services wherever we judge it is necessary to gain assurance about children’s wellbeing.

All of our inspectors have received Covid training to help keep everyone in the service and themselves as safe as possible. They undertake regular lateral flow tests and make appropriate use of PPE and face masks.

We will be flexible and will amend plans as necessary in the light of changing circumstances locally and nationally.

Operating an early learning and childcare setting (including out of school care and childminders) during Covid-19 (Updated 12 August 2020)

We have developed ‘Key Question 5’, a self-evaluation resource and tool which asks you to evaluate how well you are supporting children and families during Covid-19. The aim of this resource is to enable settings to gather information and continually evaluate their progress in supporting staff, children and families to have confidence in the provision of ELC by specifically evidencing how they have implemented the national guidance for Covid-19, while ensuring positive outcomes for children. This is the only Key Question we expect ELC providers (including out of school care and childminders) to compete. This key question will sit alongside our Quality Framework for Early Learning and Childcare when this is published later this year (which will include Key Questions 1-4).

We encourage you to complete the ‘self-evaluation tool’. The tool asks you to take account of performance data when evaluating your service.  This will be individual to your service.  It may include how you communicate with families or other settings where there are blended placements. It may also be some examples of evidence which you wish to include within the tool e.g. Supporting evidence of how you have implemented and reviewed the national guidance relevant to your service:

• Guidance for early learning and childcare services
• Guidance for childminding services
• Guidance for school age childcare services
• Guidance for fully outdoor childcare services

Inspectors will request the completed self-evaluation from providers on a risk and sampling basis. Please do not send this to us until requested. This will not be before 10 August 2020.  However, we may undertake other scrutiny activities in settings before this date. Read more about this here. 

Covid-19 Scrutiny Assessment Tool (SAT) (Added 30 July 2020)

The Covid-19 Scrutiny Assessment Tool (SAT) is a trigger tool developed by the Care Inspectorate to identify indicators of potential concerns in care homes.

From 14 August this will replace the current Risk Assessment Rating (RAD) for all Care Homes (Adults, Older People, Children and Young People). Inspectors will begin this process from 30 July.

A list of questions that the inspectors will answer when completing the SAT in the RMS system can be found here.

This is for service provider’s information only.

The SAT is not a risk assessment in the same way that the RAD was but will support us to identify what level of support and scrutiny is appropriate for a service taking account their current circumstances.

In developing the Covid-19 SAT we considered specific information relevant to the current Covid-19 pandemic. It is based on what our intelligence has so far identified as being key indicators or concerns within services to allow us to consider where additional support and/or scrutiny may be required. 

The Covid-19 SAT is based on a Scrutiny Assessment Tool we have developed and tested that included information from our enforcement review.  The release of the new tool was delayed due to the pandemic, we are planning to release the full SAT for all service types later in the year. 

Key question 7 for children and young people residential services (Added 6 July 2020)

We have developed key question 7 for children and young people residential services.

Where there are concerns relating to Covid-19 in a residential childcare setting this key question is to be used as part of our scrutiny.

Where there are concerns not relating to Covid-19, areas from the existing quality framework will be used as a basis of our scrutiny work.

New key question for care home inspections (Added 10 June 2020) 

In order to robustly assess care home arrangements to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic, our inspections are placing particular focus on infection prevention and control, personal protective equipment and staffing in care settings. 

We have developed Key Question 7 to augment  our quality framework for care homes for older people and our quality framework for care homes for adults.  We have done this to meet the duties placed on us by the Coronavirus (Scotland) (No. 2) Act and subsequent guidance that we must evaluate (grade) infection prevention and control and staffing.  

This means we will carry out targeted inspections that are short, focused and carried out with colleagues from Health Improvement Scotland and Health Protection Scotland, to assess care and support for people experiencing care and support during the Covid-19 pandemic. We will continue to put the wellbeing for people experiencing care at the heart of our inspections.  

Children and young people

Our role in children and young people’s services 

It is our job to make sure that every child and young person experiencing care in Scotland gets the best quality of care that meets their needs and choices and protects their rights. This is whether they live at home with their families, live in a children’s home, are fostered or adopted, stay in secure or school care accommodation or use respite services. We also inspect some services that provide care for families, such as women’s refuges, and housing support services that cater for young people.

Our strategic team assesses how well professionals from different disciplines and agencies work together. This is to make sure that children and young people who need care and protection are kept safe and their needs met. 

We assess how well services and partnerships self-evaluate and learn from adverse events to improve children’s experiences and outcomes.

Information about inspections for young people

Following some feedback we had from young people, we have created posters that explain what inspections are. You can download our poster for residential child care or our poster for foster care and display this in your service to help young people understand what inspections are and how they can get involved.

The Promise in action animation 

Our new animation co-designed with our young inspection volunteers demonstrates The Promise in action – by making sure that our young people’s voices authentically influence our work. 

Text to complain

Our young inspection volunteers

We work with 15 young inspection volunteers (aged between 18-26 years old) who visit children and young people’s services with us when we inspect.

Our young inspection volunteers talk with children and young people who use services and listen to their views. They meet managers to find out how well they involve children and young people to develop and improve services and they hear how well partnerships are fulfilling their responsibilities and duties as corporate parents.

If you would like to find out more about becoming a young inspection volunteer click here.

Click here to see some of the videos they have done for our joint inspections.

Our quality frameworks

Our quality frameworks support care services to self-evaluate. Our inspectors also use these when they inspect and look at the quality of care provided by services. 

Our children and young people’s inspection teams began using key question 7 in April 2022. As part of everyone's journey to meet the Promise, we reviewed key question 7 with inspectors, young people who experience or have experienced care and providers to evaluate the impact it was having and how well it was supporting the sector to self-evaluate its own performance. We made some changes as a result of this review and agreed that we will continue to use key question 7 for inspections from April 2024 onwards. We have also published new self-evaluation toolkits to support the sector. To support the launch we delivered webinars for care homes for children and young people and schoolcare accommodation and mainstream boarding schools and school hostels.

You can access the new KQ7 documents, full quality frameworks, and toolkits on The Hub here.

In April 2024 we held a live, online, briefing for providers, managers and external managers of registered services for children and young people. During the webinar we shared some overarching messages for the sector, on developments and practice themes identified throughout the previous inspection year; our methodology for the coming inspection year; and the increasing focus on young people’s voice and participation. You can watch the recording of the webinar here.

Care homes

• We have published Care Homes for Children and Young People - The Design Guide to support applicants and providers with design, planning and construction considerations for new or converted care homes for children and young people.
• We spoke to children about what was important to them in care home design, and included quotes from young people in the guidance.
• To support with emergency situations, we have published Guidance for providers of care homes for children and young people on the emergency relaxation of conditions of numbers.

Secure services

• The Secure Care Pathway and Standards Scotland were created to improve the experiences of children and young people who are in, or on the edges of, secure care, leading to better and brighter outcomes.
• We have published a Protocol and procedures for secure accommodation services on the use of registered emergency beds.

School care accommodation services

The Registrar of Independent Schools, the Care Inspectorate and Education Scotland have worked together to produce Guidance on effective safeguarding for boards of governors in independent schools, to assist with self-evaluation and monitoring of child protection and safeguarding practices.

To set out our approach to regulating guardianship arrangements in boarding schools we have published Guidance for the regulation of guardianship arrangements in boarding schools.

Supporting unaccompanied asylum seeking children (UASC)

We understand that meeting the needs of asylum-seeking and refugee children and young people across Scotland is very challenging and we believe that we all need to work together, to make any improvements that are needed. To help inform this work we hosted a webinar, with input from COSLA, Scottish Guardianship Service, and the Scottish Refugee Council. The webinar covered:

• the background to UASC policy and the National Transfer Scheme
• information about what support and services are available
• the context around why young people are arriving to Scotland, and what their lived experiences have been
• an opportunity to explore any queries or concerns, and share examples of best practice.

The content is relevant for local authorities, social workers, residential childcare staff, fostering services, and foster carers. You can watch the recording of the webinar here.

To better support how we engage with children and young people who have English as a second or foreign language, we have developed this poster for services to display. It’s designed to let young people know that we are happy to book an interpreter to chat with them.

Restrictive practices

• We understand that the use of restrictive practices in the promotion of rights, independence and choice for children and young people conflicts with promoting and maintaining a duty of care by taking protective action to keep young people safe.
• We are a member of Restraint Reduction Scotland, and have worked collaboratively with the Scottish Physical Restraint Action Group (SPRAG) to develop a Self-evaluation tool: The use of restrictive practices. It is designed to support services to evaluate how well they are doing in using restrictive practices and identify areas where they want to improve.
• To support the launch of the self-evaluation tool, we held two webinars; a recording of the webinars combined can be found here.

Depriving and restricting liberty for children and young people

We recognise that services are treading a delicate balance between taking necessary action to keep children and young people safe, whilst not unnecessarily restricting liberty.  Our new position paper aims to set out our attitude, expectation, and actions around the restriction and deprivation of liberty in care home, school care and secure accommodation services.  This includes circumstances where children and young people may be deprived of their liberty, where their liberty is restricted, or where this is a risk through environmental design and/or care practices. You can see the paper here.

Children and young people placed cross border and at a distance from home

Distance placements refer to any child who has been placed in a care setting outside of their home community. You can read our report on ‘Distance placements: exploration of practice, outcomes, and children’s rights’ here.

In January 2022 we carried out a short thematic review of children and young people placed cross border on Deprivation of Liberty Orders. We spoke to nine of the children face to face, and had a telephone interview with one young person. You can read the report about this here.

Admissions

In aspiring to make residential care a positive choice for all children in Scotland who require it, and to promote best practice in admissions and matching, we published Matching Looked After Children and Young People: Admissions Guidance for Residential Services.

Care planning

To support staff in services to develop personal plans for children and young people we developed a Guide for providers on personal planning: children and young people. We spoke with young people to gather their views, and included quotes from young people throughout the document.

Records and notification reporting

By law all services must keep certain records, and tell us if particular events take place. You can read our Records that all registered children and young people’s care services must keep and guidance on notification reporting here.

Staffing

To support providers to ensure they are appropriately assessing and providing staffing levels to meet the needs of young people in their care, we published Guidance for providers on the assessment of staffing levels.

Corporate parenting

As a corporate parent, we carry out many of the roles any parent should.

We work with other corporate parents to promote the wellbeing of all children and young people and keep them safe from harm. We work hard to enable children and young people to have as much of a say as possible.

Read our corporate parenting plan 2021-23.

We have developed Guidance for children and young people’s services on the inclusion of transgender including non-binary young people. This is in response to a number of services who approached us looking for advice on how best to support transgender including non-binary young people. The guidance is based on current good practice and includes real practice examples from the sector.

Stand Up For Siblings

We are a proud member of the Stand Up For Siblings partnership, a Scotland wide initiative to improve and change legislation, policy and practice.  It’s about making sure children and young people live with their brothers and sisters, where it is appropriate to do so, and sustain strong and positive lifelong relationships with them. Read the Staying together and connected: getting it right for sisters and brothers: national practice guidance.

Our young inspection volunteers made a big contribution to this award-winning work and made a film about promoting and supporting sibling relationships for children and young people who experience care. Watch the film here. 

The Promise

We continue to work to deliver our organisation's contribution to keeping The Promise for children and young people. The Promise is about providing more intensive, preventative support to families so they can stay together where it is safe to do so.

Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry

We work with the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry to investigate the abuse of children in care in Scotland.

Continuing care

We have been supporting the Staying Put agenda since 2013 and our role as corporate parents under the Children and Young people (Scotland) Act 2014 includes supporting young people moving from care to adulthood and independence.

Read our Guidance for services on the provision of continuing care, the Continuing Care and the Welfare Assessment: Practice Note and watch the Continuing Care and the Welfare Assessment Webinar Recording.

We were involved in Continuing Care and Your Rights, a project co-created with care experienced young people, CELCIS, and Clan Childlaw. Continuing Care and Your Rights provides accessible information for young people on their right to continuing care.

Continuing improvement

We have created a video to help you learn how to run your own improvement projects using the Model for Improvement and ‘Plan Do Study Act’ (PDSA) cycles. This will also be helpful to both services and providers when progressing areas for improvement made as a result of inspection.

The video includes specific examples relating to children and young people. 

The Health and Social Care Standards

Under the Health and Social Care Standards, everyone is entitled to high-quality care and support tailored towards their needs and choices. That is why the Standards focus on the experience of people using services and supporting their outcomes.

The Standards apply to the NHS, as well as services registered with the Care Inspectorate and Healthcare Improvement Scotland. We use the Health and Social Care Standards to make sure services respect and meet people’s rights, needs and choices.

Download your copy of the Standards.

Equality and diversity

We believe that people in Scotland should experience a better quality of life as a result of accessible, excellent services that are designed and delivered to reflect their individual needs and promote their rights.

Our work focuses on people’s rights, choices and individual outcomes, the things that matter most to people. We continue to put equality and diversity at the heart of all we do. That’s why we made equality and diversity a key principle of our equality, diversity and inclusion strategy.

How to use our 'Registered by' widget

What is the 'Registered by' widget?

The widget is a logo with some coding behind it that can be displayed on any website.  Each registered care service has its own widget to connect directly to its own information pages on the Care Inspectorate website.

So, if you are a care service and you want to show your website visitors that you are registered with us, you can download the widget and display it on your website.  When your website visitors click on the widget, a new window will open that displays the Care Inspectorate information page for your service. Your own webpage will still be open.

Who can use the widget?

Anyone can use the widget, but they must abide by our terms and conditions, which are at the bottom of this page.

How do I download the widget?

Go to the information page for your service, on this website.

Click on the ‘Care Inspectorate Registered Widget’ tab in the menu bar on the left.

Follow the instructions.  You may need to ask your website administrator, hosting provider or website developer to help you.

Add the embed code to your website where you want it to appear.  For example, in a footer, a sidebar and so on.

The widget code will work on your website straight away.

Troubleshooting

This is a simple and straightforward piece of coding and should not cause issues.  If you do have difficulty, first contact your web administrator. If your web administrator is unable to resolve the issue, please email us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Terms and conditions

You can use the widget:

• in relation to any care service registered by the Care Inspectorate.

You cannot:

• use it in any way that would deliberately mislead people
• modify it in any way
• use it any way that would bring the Care Inspectorate into disrepute
• sell it or sublicence it
• use it in any way that could intentionally damage or overburden the Care Inspectorate website
• put anything around the widget that implies that the Care Inspectorate endorses you or your service.

Other conditions of use

The widget is designed to be used in conjunction with the Care Inspectorate website.  Accordingly, use of the widget is also governed by our website's core privacy notice.

Disclaimer of warranties

We make our best efforts to make sure the widget is always available and provides accurate information, but it is provided 'as is', with no warranties.

Limitation of liability

The Care Inspectorate disclaims any responsibility for any harm resulting from your use of the widget.

You understand and agree that you access and/or use the widget at your own discretion and risk, and that you will be solely responsible for any damages to your computer system or loss of data that results from accessing or using the widget.