The Care Inspectorate has issued guidance for its staff in respect of the notification requirements of providers, what to do when responding to notifications about financial viability and also identifying financial viability issues.

This guidance is about care homes in the main due to the significant impact on service users where closure or threat of closure occurs in these services but does apply to all care services except childminders.

The guidance has been produced to ensure staff know what information is required and the routes for assessing and acting upon that.  In addition, and as the guidance states, providers will also be asked for further information.  Therefore we have ensured that the guidance has been made widely available to ensure that expectations are understood by all stakeholders.

It is recognised however that further work is required by a range of agencies on both financial viability and contingency planning and this work will continue to be lead by the Partnership Contingency Planning Group, led by COSLA. This group will meet in December to review the learning on issues so far and will undertake further development work thereafter.  There is representation on the group from Scottish Government, Care Inspectorate, Scottish Care, CCPS, ADSW and COSLA.