UK Offence Report

Disqualification from being a member

regulation 4(1) of The Common Services Agency (Membership and Procedure) Amendment (Scotland) Regulations 2025

This offence was read from the text as made, and no revised version was available, so a later revocation could not be ruled out. Check the current text at legislation.gov.uk.

What the provision says

1 A person is disqualified from being a member if the person— a within a period of 5 years before the proposed date of appointment or after appointment (as the case may be) commits an offence in the British Islands for which the person is sentenced to imprisonment (whether suspended or not) for 3 months or longer, b is or has been dismissed from employment in a health service body, except by redundancy, c is or has been removed from office in a health service body before the term of office expires, d is a member of another health service body, e is disqualified by the Tribunal from inclusion in a list prepared under or by virtue of Parts I or II of the Act, f is or has been removed, for reasons of impairment or loss of fitness to practise, from a list prepared under or by virtue of— i Parts I or II of the Act, ii the National Health Service Act 2006, iii the National Health Service (Wales) Act 2006, or iv the Health and Personal Social Services (Northern Ireland) Order 1972, g is, or has been removed, for reasons of impairment or loss of fitness to practise, from a statutory register maintained by a regulatory body, h is an undischarged bankrupt, i has had a judicial factor appointed to their estate and the judicial factor has not been discharged by the court, j is or has been subject to a disqualification order or disqualification undertaking under the Company Directors Disqualification Act 1986 or the Company Directors Disqualification (Northern Ireland) Order 2002, k is or has been removed or prevented from being a trustee of, or otherwise acting for or on behalf of, a charity (or a body controlled by a charity) by— i a charity regulator, or ii a court or tribunal in the British Islands, or l is or has been subject to a sanction under section 19(1)(b) to (e) (action on finding of contravention) of the Ethical Standards in Public Life etc.

Text as made, from legislation.gov.uk. © Crown copyright, reused under the Open Government Licence v3.0. This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.

Who it binds, and what has to be proved

Binds
a person
Conduct
breaching the provision
Fault element
Strict liability
Burden of proof
No statutory defence — prosecution proves everything

The prosecution must prove that the conduct happened. This is a strict liability offence as drafted: the provision uses no word of intention, knowledge, recklessness or negligence, so there is no need to show that a person meant to do it, knew about it, or was careless.

Intention, knowledge and carelessness are irrelevant to guilt. They may still matter a great deal to sentence.

The provision states no defence, so the prosecution bears the burden on every element of the offence.

Classifier’s reasoning: no word of intention, knowledge, recklessness or negligence in the offence or its provision.

What would breach regulation 4(1)?

These are illustrations, not law. They are generated from the provision’s own words to show the shape of the offence. Whether any particular conduct is caught depends on the full text, on any amendment since, and on the facts.

  1. Doing what the provision prohibits, or failing to do what it requires under the Common Services Agency (Membership and Procedure) Amendment (Scotland) Regulations 2025.

Penalty

Mode of trial
Not determined
Maximum fine
Not determined
Maximum prison (summary)
Not determined

no penalty is stated in this instrument; it may be in the enabling Act, or in a general penalties provision this pass did not connect to the offence.

No penalty was determined from this instrument. It may be in the enabling Act, or in a general penalties provision this pass did not connect to the offence. Absence of a figure here is not evidence that the offence carries no penalty.

Sentencing

Offences of this kind are usually sentenced under the guidelines below. This is a mapping by subject, not a finding about this provision, and the links go to a search of the Sentencing Council’s own site.

Prosecution figures

No published per-offence figure was found for this provision, and it could not be matched to a Ministry of Justice offence code. Offences created by statutory instrument very largely do not have one. Absence of a figure is not evidence that the offence is unused.

Status and lifecycle

Current status
Status not determined
Made
4 December 2025
In force from
2 February 2026
Extent
Not stated

How this was established: read from the text as made; no revised version available, so later revocation could not be ruled out.

What the instrument is for

(This note is not part of the Regulations) — the explanatory note published with the instrument, © Crown copyright.

These Regulations amend the Common Services Agency (Membership and Procedure) Regulations 1991 (“the 1991 Regulations”) which make provision with respect to the Common Services Agency for the Scottish Health Service (“the Agency”). By virtue of section 10 of the National Health Service (Scotland) Act 1978 the Agency discharges such functions of Health Boards constituted under section 2 of that Act as the Scottish Ministers refer to it. These Regulations update the 1991 Regulations in order to achieve consistency with the legislation relating to membership and procedure of Health Boards. The updates are as set out in the following paragraphs. Regulation 2(2), (3) and (6) to (9) amends regulations 1, 2, 5, and 7 to 9 respectively of the 1991 Regulations to update the wording of the regulations amended into gender neutral and modern usage. Regulation 2(4) substitutes a new regulation 3 into the 1991 Regulations to make provision about membership of the management Committee of the Agency as follows: regulation 3(1) makes provision allowing members to resign from office. regulation 3(2) gives the Scottish Ministers the ability to terminate the appointment of a member if the Scottish Ministers are of the view that it is not in the interests of the Scottish Health Service that a member should continue to hold that appointment. regulation 3(3) makes provision allowing the Scottish Ministers to end a person’s membership where that member has not attended meetings of the Committee, or any sub-committee the member was due to attend, for six months. regulation 3(4) ensures that in the event that a member becomes disqualified, in terms of new regulation 4, their membership of the Committee immediately ends. regulation 3(5) gives the Scottish Ministers the ability to suspend members by determination. regulation 3(6) sets out the circumstances in which a suspension under regulation 3(5) will end. Regulation 2(5) substitutes a new regulation 4 into the 1991 Regulations to make provision about the circumstances in which persons are disqualified from membership of the management committee of the Agency. In terms of the new regulation 4(1) those circumstances are: by reason of having committed an offence in the British Islands, dismissal from employment in a health service body, except by redundancy, removal from office in a health service body before the expiry of the term of that office, membership of another health service body, the NHS Tribunal has disqualified the person from inclusion in a list under Parts I or II of the National Health Service (Scotland) Act 1978, removal, for reasons of impairment or loss of fitness to practise, from a list under the legislation referred to in regulation 4(1)(e), removal, for reasons of impairment or loss of fitness to practise, from a statutory register maintained by a listed regulatory body, the person is an undischarged bankrupt, a judicial factor has been appointed in relation to the person’s estate and the judicial factor has not been discharged by the court, the person is or has been subject to a disqualification order or disqualification undertaking under the Company Directors Disqualification legislation referred to in regulation 4(1)(j), the person is prevented from being the trustee of a charity, or from acting on behalf of a charity, by a decision of a charity regulator or a court or tribunal in the British Islands, the person has been sanctioned in consequence of a finding of a contravention of a code of conduct prepared under the terms of the Ethical Standards in Public Life etc. (Scotland) Act 2000. The new regulation 4(2) sets out definitions for the purposes of the regulation, including “charity regulator”, “health service body”, “regulatory body” and “undischarged bankrupt”. Regulation 3 ensures that where a person has been appointed as a member of the management committee of the Agency before these Regulations come into force then the version of regulation 4 which had effect prior to these Regulations coming into force continues to have effect as regards that person.

Read the full note and every offence in this instrument

Other offences in the same instrument

How this was identified as an offence

Everything above rests on the judgement that this provision creates a criminal offence, rather than mentioning one. That judgement is made by rule, from the words of the provision, and this is the rule that made it — with a confidence of 0.92.

Basis
the provision says a person “commits an offence”
Confidence
0.92 of 1.00

A provision that states a penalty for an offence created elsewhere can read very like one that creates an offence, and the rules can mistake the one for the other. If the text quoted above sets a penalty for something made an offence by another provision, treat the classification on this page with that in mind, and read the instrument.

Check the source