The implementation of Adult Support and Protection (Scotland) Act (2007)

The main areas considered within this qualitative study are the extent to which the Adult Support and Protection (Scotland) Act (2007) (ASPA) impacts upon the civil and human rights of adults’ by exploring the “problem” it was developed to resolve, the reality of implementation and the construction of thresholds for intervention in practice. Despite a level of clarity about the need for this legislation inconsistencies of understanding about where the ASPA should be targeted created challenges for implementation, particularly around the issue of capacity. The scope of the population for whom the ASPA was intended remains sizeable and broadly unformed. The vision of the framers that the ASPA would provide support and protection for a range of adults at risk of harm without being overly intrusive in their lives appears, at least partly, to have been realised. Challenges to implementation have largely focused on; the parameters of the ASPA and the population it aims to protect, the conceptualising of what an adult protection referral might consist of and the impact of this understanding on thresholds for intervention. Procedural challenges identified were specifically related to the involvement of health and the understanding of adult protection of other stakeholders, for example the police, inconsistent recording of data and information sharing. The interaction between formal and informal knowledge and consideration of a range of key concepts drawn upon by practitioners to determine thresholds for intervention creates a built in inconsistency of approach with a clear element of subjectivity. The rights based approach integral to all intervention under the ASPA, was well applied by the practitioners in the study and could be considered to have protected the citizenship of the adults to some extent. Perhaps more accurately it could be said that the already conditional citizenship experienced by many of the adults was not further eroded