Explanatory note

These Regulations enable local authorities to make residential accommodation arrangements for certain categories of people who are in or temporarily absent from independent sector residential care and nursing homes on 31st March 1993.

Residents in such accommodation generally have preserved rights to higher levels of income support, and these Regulations extend the definitions of relevant premises contained in section 26A(2) of the National Assistance Act 1948 and section 86A(2) of the Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968 (both of which come into force on 1st April 1993) to cover other premises in which residents may qualify for preserved rights (regulation 2). In addition, residents are to be treated as ordinarily resident in relevant premises if they are in fact resident in such premises or if they are temporarily absent from such premises (regulation 3).

The categories of people for whom local authorities will be entitled to make arrangements, subject to certain conditions, are all people for whom they have already accepted responsibility (regulation 4), people who are without preserved rights including people who lose them (regulation 5), people under pensionable age (regulations 6 and 7), and people over pensionable age who are ordinarily resident in residential care homes immediately before these regulations come into force, but who are evicted or served with a notice to quit those premises, or who are temporarily absent from a residential care home to which they will not be allowed to return (regulations 8 and 9).