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The Law Commission’s Review of Adult Social Care
Posted on Friday, February 19, 2010
[lang_en][/lang_en][lang_cy][/lang_cy]In 2008 the Law Commission announced a project to review adult social care law in England and Wales. Adult social care includes a range of services provided by social services departments such as day centres and home care services, as well as assessments of need and safeguarding adults from abuse and neglect.
Who are we?
The Law Commission is an independent statutory body created by the Law Commissions Act of 1965. The Law Commission has a duty to keep under review all of the law of England and Wales, and to recommend reform where it is needed.
Why does the law need to be reformed?
The legal framework for the provision of community care services is a piecemeal and fragmented body of law. This leads to inefficiency and uncertainty, both for service users and social care professionals. Some areas are incomprehensible and others are confusing and sometimes discriminatory. The ultimate aim of the project is to provide a new coherent legal structure – in the form of a single social care statute for England and Wales – so that service users and carers can more easily understand which services they are entitled to. The review also provides an opportunity to modernise language and concepts in the law, so as to more accurately reflect current understandings of disability and citizenship.
A snapshot of the main features of the project:
- Should a new social care statute include on its face a set of core principles that underpin and guide the actions of social care professionals?
- Should there be a single duty to carry out a community care assessment and when should it be triggered?
- How should the law provide for an assessment of carers, and is the current definition of a carer appropriate?
- How should the law establish entitlement to services and direct payments?
- Can the law help to ensure that disabled people are not prevented from moving to a different local authority area because they don’t know in advance whether they will be entitled to services?
- How should the definitions and language used in legislation be altered in order to modernise and de-stigmatise services?
- What legal changes are needed to the adult safeguarding procedures?
- How should the law reflect differences between England and Wales?
How can you get involved?
The Law Commission’s consultation paper, which will set out detailed proposals for law reform, will be published on 24 February 2010. This will then be followed by a four month consultation period, in which we are keen to encourage a wide range of comments – particularly those from social workers, service users and their families, carers and advocates. During the consultation we shall be attending meetings and conferences around the country, to try and obtain a full range of responses to our proposals.
If you are interested in arranging such a meeting please get in touch. We also encourage individuals and organisations to provide written responses, which will be carefully considered by our team. Responses don’t have to be formal or lawyerly – it is vital that people who come into contact with social services are given a voice about the future direction of adult social care law.
The consultation paper will be available to download from the Law Commission’s website http://www.lawcom.gov.uk/adult_social_care.htm.
Feel free:
- to email the team at adultsocialcare@lawcommission.gsi.gov.uk
- or write to us at: Amanda Walker, Law Commission, Public Law Team, Steel House, 11 Tothill Street, London, SW1A 9LJ
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