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

Section 4: Additional implementation considerations

Enforcement/ compliance

76. This policy is expanding the CI’s enforcement powers already provided by the 2010 Act and will therefore be delivered by the Care Inspectorate, who are ultimately accountable to Ministers. This policy has been developed with the CI’s input and will apply to all social care services that are regulated by them.

77. The Care Inspectorate’s existing regime contains a number of component levels which will continue to apply:

• Health and Social Care standards – these are outcome focused and based on what a service user can expect.
• The 2010 Act – Part 5 contains a number of requirements and functions set out below.
• Secondary legislation - there is a range of instruments containing detailed requirements in certain areas. For example, for registration there are requirements relating to the fitness of premises and the fitness of managers.
• Quality Improvement Framework.

78. Where registration is cancelled by the Care Inspectorate, the provider would be committing an offence under section 80 of the 2010 Act if they continued to operate.

79. The Care Inspectorate are clear that cancellation of a care service’s registration is very much a last resort. The Care Inspectorate will work with the services it regulates to try to support improvement before sanctions, such as cancellation, would be taken forward.

80. Any provider in the situation where the CI decide to implement the proposal to cancel their registration, will have the right to appeal the decision via the Sheriff Court.

UK, EU and International Regulatory Alignment and Obligations

Internal Market/ Intra-UK Trade

81. The proposed policy will not result in any intra-UK regulatory impacts.

International Trade Implications

82. The proposed policy will not impact on international trade.

EU Alignment consideration

83. Countries in the EU have different social care systems and so there is no standard approach to take account of, and no impact on EU markets.

Legal Aid

84. The proposed policy will not give rise to increased use of legal processes. The existing offence under section 80 of the Public Services Reform (Scotland) Act 2010 will apply to providers subject to this policy. However, the Scottish Government expect any investigations or prosecutions under the offence to be rare, therefore any potential impact on legal aid will be minimal.

Digital impact

85. The policy will not have any impact on technology – it adds a new power to the Care Inspectorate’s regulatory regime.

Business forms

86. We do not expect any new forms to be introduced but if they are we would expect the CI to test the forms with those who will be using them so they are fit for purpose.