Citation, commencement and interpretation

1.—(1) These Regulations may be cited as the Social Care and Social Work Improvement Scotland (Excepted Services) Regulations 2012 and come into force on the day after the day on which they are made.

(2) In these Regulations “the Act” means the Public Services Reform (Scotland) Act 2010.

Support services

2.  There is excepted from the definition of “support service” in paragraph 1 of schedule 12 to the Act any service which consists wholly of one or more of the following:—

(a)field social work;

(b)counselling, other than counselling which is provided in residential accommodation as part of a planned programme of care; or

(c)a service providing assistance to a person to enable that person to prepare for, obtain, or engage in any work.

Nurse agencies

3.  There is excepted from the definition of “nurse agency” in paragraph 4 of schedule 12 to the Act, any service provided by a health body or the Common Services Agency for the Scottish Health Service(3) acting in exercise of functions conferred by the National Health Service (Scotland) Act 1978(4).

Day care of children

4.  There is excepted from the definition of “day care of children” in paragraph 13 of schedule 12 to the Act any service unless its primary purpose is the provision of care to children.

EXPLANATORY NOTE

(This note is not part of the Regulations)

These Regulations exclude certain specified activities from the definition of care services under Part 5 of the Public Services Reform (Scotland) Act 2010.

Regulation 2 excepts certain activities from the definition of a support service, namely field social work, i.e. social work which is not carried out within a care service, certain counselling services and employment advice services. Regulation 3 provides that activities performed by health boards, special health boards and the Common Services Agency for the Scottish Health Service under the National Health Service (Scotland) Act 1978 are excepted from the definition of nurse agencies and regulation 4 restricts the definition of day care of children to those services with a primary purpose of the provision of care for children.