Social Care and Social Work Improvement Scotland (Cancellation of Registration) Order 2026: equality impact assessment

Background

The Scottish Government is proposing to lay an SSI made under a new power for the Care Inspectorate (CI) provided for by Section 22 of the Care Reform (Scotland) Act 2025.

Regulation plays an important role in ensuring consistent and high standards of social care. A key issue with the current regulatory regime relates to providers who operate, often for lengthy periods, with inconsistent quality and levels of service. Inadequate care has a negative impact on people using the services, including adult care homes, nurseries, childcare and support services. All people experiencing care have the right to expect safe, high-quality care that meets their individual needs.

At present providers who fail to meet the required standards could be issued with an improvement notice by the Care Inspectorate. This allows the provider a set amount of time to meet the requirements as detailed in the improvement notice. A failure to do so could result in escalation and a move by the CI to propose cancellation of the care service’s registration.

In practice, where an improvement notice has been issued requiring significant improvement within a specified timescale, in some cases, improvements are maintained for only a very short time, i.e. during inspection. That is not the intention of the improvement notice process, which aims to bring the relevant care service back up to the expected standard it is required to maintain throughout the lifetime of the registration.

This policy is intended to achieve that, in cases where it is the professional judgement of the CI that the service/provider has not sustained the requirements of an improvement notice at any point during the period of 12 months following the CI confirming that the requirements of that improvement notice have been met, the CI will have the power to forgo the issuing of a further improvement notice and instead begin the cancellation process by issuing a proposal to cancel the registration.

This policy also enables the CI to propose to cancel a provider’s registration when it is no longer satisfied that the provider is fit to provide the service within the meaning of regulation 6 of the Social Care and Social Work Improvement Scotland (Requirements for Care Services) Regulations 2011.

The provider would have the right to appeal the decision via the Courts.

Ministers are required to prescribe the circumstances in which the Care Inspectorate may use this power, which is the purpose of this SSI.

The intended outcomes of this policy will be to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of the CI’s powers and procedures. It will enable the CI to act more effectively and quickly than at present to tackle consistently poorly performing and inadequate care services, which lead to poor outcomes for users of care and residents. This is particularly important where inadequate care services continue to be provided and will help the CI ensure that these individuals are protected and receive good quality of care.

The aims of this policy are ultimately to protect users of social care services, improve their outcomes and ensure the quality of care meets the standard expected.

The Care Inspectorate is the independent body responsible for regulating care services in Scotland. This includes services for adults, early learning and childcare, children’s services, and community justice. Their role includes registration, inspection, complaints, enforcement and improvement support. The Care Inspectorate makes sure services meet the right standards and helps them to improve if needed.

These provisions do not specifically target particular groups or sections of society and we have made due consideration to Equality legislation which covers the protected characteristics of: age, disability, sex, pregnancy and maternity, gender reassignment, sexual orientation, race and religion and belief.

The policy will have direct effects on:

• Service users (particularly elderly, disabled, and children)
• Carers and family members helping others access services
• Staff delivering services across the social care sector.

Service types where the policy applies are:

• Childminding (2,830 registered services as at 30 November 2025)
• Daycare of Children (3,361 services)
• Care Home Service (1,371 services)
• Support Service (1,598 services)
• Housing Support Service (1,079 services)
• Nurse Agency (149 services)
• School Care Accommodation Service (50 services)
• Adult Placement Service (78 services)
• Child Care Agency (11 services)
• Fostering Service (58 services)
• Adoption Service (38 services)
• Offender Accommodation Service (5 services)
• ^· Secure Accommodation Service (4 services)

The main groups of people affected by the new policy are people using social care services. Also, the business owners of such services and its workforce would be affected by the potential closure of their service as a result of these enhanced powers for the CI.