Appropriate Adults: guidance for local authorities

5. Quality assessment and oversight

5.1 The duty to assess the quality of Appropriate Adult services has been conferred on the Care Inspectorate and local authorities must have regard to recommendations made by the Care Inspectorate in this role (section 102(2) of the 2016 Act).

5.2 Local authorities are expected to work with the Care Inspectorate to develop, implement and utilise a framework which will be used to evaluate Appropriate Adult services.

5.3 The Scottish Government also intends to create a non-statutory oversight framework to help promote consistency, quality and sustainability of Appropriate Adult provision at a national level. This work is ongoing and aims to create an oversight structure including the following elements:

• National oversight group

It is intended to create a National Oversight Group with members from Appropriate Adult services, justice and health partners, local and national government, and third sector organisations representing service users representation to have national oversight of Appropriate Adult provision in Scotland. It is envisaged that this group will set and oversee the direction of Appropriate Adult policies at a national level. It is also intended that this group will have oversight of the implementation of the national training framework (as set out in section 4).

• National Coordinator post

This will be a newly created post with the intention of providing a national single point of contact for Appropriate Adult services and the Care Inspectorate which can provide assistance and guidance in relation to the implementation of the statutory service. This post will be involved in the National Oversight Group and also have involvement in policy development
in relation to Appropriate Adults.

• Practitioners Forum(s)

Local authorities will be encouraged to establish forums or similar for Appropriate Adult teams to ensure that there is a network of support for Appropriate Adult services where practitioners and coordinators/managers discuss good practice, share information and identify issues at an operational level.

5.4 This guidance will be revised to reflect developments in relation to the quality assessment and oversight arrangements as and when they are implemented.