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Trends in the use of welfare guardianship

For the second year running we have seen a decrease in the rate of growth of new welfare guardianship orders under the Adults with Incapacity Act 2000.

In 2007-08 we recorded a 13% increase in new orders. During the past year this has slowed down even further to just over 9%. The increase in previous years had been 32% (2006-07), 32% (2005-06) and 45% (2004-05). This slowing down in the growth rate coincides with increasing use of Welfare Powers of Attorney - up from just under 20,000 being granted in 2006-07 to nearly 28,000 last year.

Last year we speculated that changes to the Social Work (Scotland) Act with the introduction of section 13ZA may have been partly responsible for changes in the trend.  Local authority applications in approved orders had fallen by 20% in the year following its implementation. In 2008-09, however, local authority applications in approved orders actually increased over the previous year by 4%.

It remains to be seen whether this is a levelling out of local authority initiated orders. On the other hand, it is possible that this reversal in the downward trend may have resulted from the introduction of the Adult Support and Protection (Scotland) Act, which places a responsibility on local authorities in respect of vulnerable adults. It may be that these new statutory duties have resulted in tighter procedures for investigations into situations where an adult is vulnerable, which have ultimately led to decisions to seek welfare guardianship under the 2000 Act. Research into the outcome of case conferences held under the Adult Support and Protection (Scotland) Act could shed further light on this. As it stands, the slowing down in use of welfare guardianship is largely attributable to a slowing down in the rate of growth of private applications.

During the past year we have had greater success in harmonising our statistics with those reported by the Office of the Public Guardian. Last year's variance of 7% has been reduced to just over 2%. We will continue to seek consistency on data in future years.