# The Regulation of Care (Child Contact Services) (Scotland) Order 2025, Note: Explanatory note


(This note is not part of the Order)
This Order amends the Public Services Reform (Scotland) Act 2010 (“the Act”) to add “child contact service” as a category of care services regulated by Social Care and Social Work Improvement Scotland (commonly known as the Care Inspectorate).
Article 2 makes amendments to Part 5 of the Act, including adding a definition of “child contact service” to schedule 12 of the Act.
Article 3 makes transitional provision for child contact services which are already operating when the Order comes fully into force on 1 April 2027. Such a service is temporarily deemed to have been registered by the Care Inspectorate at that time. The deeming will end if one of the events specified in article 3(3) occurs. Otherwise, if an application for registration is made to the Care Inspectorate in the 6 months following the Order coming fully into force, the deeming will continue until that application is determined. If no application is made during those 6 months, the deeming will end and the service will cease to be registered at the end of that period.
For services deemed to be registered during the transitional period mentioned above, article 3(5) disapplies technical provisions (in the Act and elsewhere) which would ordinarily depend on the service having gone through the registration process.
Article 1(2)(a) allows related regulations to be signed and laid at the same time as this Order. Article 1(2)(b) allows the Care Inspectorate to make preparations to give effect to this Order. Under article 1(2)(c) the Order comes fully into force on 1 April 2027.

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Source: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/sdsi/2025/9780111063729/note (the official version)
Page: https://openlegislation.uk/draft-regulation-of-care-child-contact-services-scotland-order-2025/note
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Source: legislation.gov.uk, The National Archives.