Adults with Incapacity Amendment Act: consultation
Variation of guardianship order to add financial or welfare powers
There may be situations where a guardian has been appointed with only financial powers and circumstances change so that welfare powers need to be added or vice versa.
At present the Adults with Incapacity Act requires that in both the above cases, a whole new application is required. That means a new summary application, two new medical reports and either a mental health officer report or a ‘person with sufficient knowledge’ report. This, as we know, will be very time consuming. Very often it will be well established that the adult lacks capacity by reason of the existing guardianship order, meaning that two new medical reports may not be necessary.
We think a more efficient way would be to require only the additional mental health officer report, or ‘person with sufficient knowledge’ report together with the the Office of the Public Guardian guardian declaration form, to be required. The sheriff can ask for more medical reports if required, but they should not be mandatory.