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The Way Forward for Care

Chapter 7 Other duties of the Commission

94. The Commission will be required to submit a report to Scottish Ministers as soon as possible after 31 March each year on the exercise of its functions in that year. Scottish Ministers will lay the report before the Scottish Parliament.

95. The Commission should be required to submit whatever planning documents are required by Scottish Ministers; to act in accordance with any directions given by Scottish Ministers and under their general guidance; and to take account of any performance indicators or targets set by them. The intention is that the Commission would be asked to submit a 3 year Corporate Plan, and annual update. The Commission will also be required to provide information about care services and early education to Scottish Ministers.

96. The Commission will have a duty to provide appropriate access to its registers without charge. It will also have the power to inform the public about the availability and quality of services. The Commission should not duplicate what is there already, such as the Childcare Strategy for Scotland which promotes the development of Scotland-wide systems to provide childcare information to parents and providers. There would be important links and information sharing between the Commission and local authorities in particular to ensure good public access to such information but also to ensure that providers are not over-burdened by information requests.

97. As the consultation paper indicated, Scottish Ministers intend that the Commission should fulfil the recommendation of the Royal Commission on Long Term Care that there should be a National Care Commission to take a strategic overview of the care system and its funding and to steward the interests of older people. We do not intend that this role should be limited to older people. The Commission will therefore have a statutory power to advise Ministers on trends in care provision generally. In doing this it will be able to draw on the information collected from care providers, the results of its inspections and the demographic and other information collected by the Scottish Executive. We would expect the Commission to include its advice to Ministers as part of its annual report.

98. The Commission should be required to establish suitable procedures for dealing with any complaints made to it about registered care and early education services by users, their relatives or advocates or staff. Before establishing such procedures, the Commission will be required to submit details to Scottish Ministers for approval. While local resolution of complaints by the provider will be the norm there should be no requirement for a user of a service to go through the provider's own system before approaching the Commission or for the complainer to be identified as part of the process. Any procedures developed must be easily understood by service users and the general public and there must be clarity between when complaints are dealt with by the Commission and by the Scottish Social Services Council. This may include development of a "complaints hotline" for users and staff "whistle-blowing". The Commission will also be required to ensure that it has a transparent system in place to deal with complaints in relation to its own operations.

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