The purpose of these regulations is twofold. Firstly, to revoke the limited coronavirus-related amendments made to requirements on providers of certain regulated services, which came into force in June 2020. These aimed to streamline the establishment and support provision of emergency social care for adults, should this be needed, due to the spread of coronavirus. They also simplified pre-employment checks for new adult residential and domiciliary care workers, recognising that it may not be reasonably practical to obtain all information in the specified form in pandemic conditions. These exceptions and easements were accompanied by guidance to assist their interpretation, explain how they could work in practice, and reinforce that all other requirements on providers remained in effect. To apply appropriate rigour and oversight, the amendments had built-in safeguards or were aligned with existing obligations to ensure safe provision of care and support.

Revocation of these amendments on 31 October is supported by a clear and significant majority of respondents to our recent consultation. I'm grateful to those who acknowledged their limited use in practice, demonstrating the incredible efforts made to maintain services and standards in response to the pandemic. Points were also understandably made about the need to be prepared to react as soon as possible to the potential need to reinstate these changes. We continue to closely monitor the public health situation and its impacts on the sector, and should we see a return to heightened alert measures and legal protections, the Welsh Ministers will promptly consider whether any legislative response is required to support providers of regulated services, drawing on intelligence from the use of these easements.

The second purpose of the regulations before us today is to clarify the description of category C premises within regulation 49 of the Regulated Services (Service Providers and Responsible Individuals) Regulations 2017. This amendment is intended to ensure that, when a service provider applies to Care Inspectorate Wales to use currently unoccupied premises for the provision of accommodation-based services in cases where those premises were previously registered under any relevant enactment as a place where residential care was provided, then those premises must meet additional requirements applied to new premises. This change would take effect from 1 November. This clarification that category C includes premises previously registered under any relevant enactment, not only the Regulation and Inspection of Social Care (Wales) Act 2016, is intended to support our long-standing policy to drive improvements in the built estate used for the provision of care homes, secure accommodation and family residential centre services.