Your rights under the law

What does the Act put first?

Purpose before procedure. Section 1 is titled Promoting individual well-being, and it is the section the rest of the Act works towards: the council has to have regard to it in what it does under the Act for an adult. In an argument it is the section to name when a decision has been explained only as process, because process is the means and well-being is the thing the process exists to advance.

Care Act 2014, section 1, Promoting individual well-being. Version Latest available (Revised) as at 2 September 2026, legislation.gov.uk, read on 3 September 2026.

The fourteen steps, each tied to its section, are lined up in the route map. This page takes the four that come up most in letters and phone calls, and prints the section that carries each one.

Can the council refuse to assess you?

It can refuse in the situations the Act names, and the question section 9 answers is what an adult needs rather than what an adult has. Section 9 is titled Assessment of an adult's needs for care and support, and the separate question of what an adult can afford arrives later, under its own section: section 17 is titled Assessment of financial resources. Keeping the two apart is not a technicality. It is the difference between a needs assessment and a means test, and it is the difference most often blurred at the front door.

Care Act 2014, sections 9 and 17. Version Latest available (Revised) as at 2 September 2026, legislation.gov.uk, read on 3 September 2026.

Two neighbouring sections matter here. Section 10 is titled Assessment of a carer's needs for support, and it puts the person who looks after an adult on their own footing, with an assessment of their own rather than a mention inside somebody else's. Section 11 is titled Refusal of assessment, and it is the section to read where an assessment has been declined, or where an adult has declined one: it names the situation and what follows from it.

Care Act 2014, sections 10 and 11. Version Latest available (Revised) as at 2 September 2026, legislation.gov.uk, read on 3 September 2026.

Who wrote the eligibility criteria, and where do they live?

In regulations, rather than in the Act. Section 13 is titled The eligibility criteria, and the criteria themselves are set out in the Care and Support (Eligibility Criteria) Regulations 2015: regulation 2 for adults who need care and support, regulation 3 for carers. The regulations are short, public, and they are the text an eligibility decision has to be measured against, which is why this handbook names them and points at them instead of paraphrasing them here.

Care Act 2014, section 13. Version Latest available (Revised) as at 2 September 2026, legislation.gov.uk, read on 3 September 2026. Care and Support (Eligibility Criteria) Regulations 2015, SI 2015 No. 313, text as made, legislation.gov.uk, read on 3 September 2026.

Asking for an eligibility decision criterion by criterion, in writing, is the request that turns a single word like ineligible into something that can be read, checked and answered.

When does the council have to arrange an advocate?

Where an adult would otherwise have substantial difficulty taking part. Section 67 is titled Involvement in assessments, plans etc., and it puts independent advocacy inside the process rather than alongside it. The timing is the whole of the practical point: an advocate who arrives before the assessment starts helps to shape the record, and one who arrives afterwards helps to argue with it, which is harder. independent advice and advocacy sets out what to ask for and when to ask for it.

Care Act 2014, section 67, Involvement in assessments, plans etc. Version Latest available (Revised) as at 2 September 2026, legislation.gov.uk, read on 3 September 2026.

Which version of the law is this page written from?

From the revised text published on the national register of legislation, in the version marked Latest available (Revised) as at 2 September 2026. That text still carries amendments made by the Health and Care Act 2022 that have not been brought into force, which is why every source line on this page names a version and a reading date instead of stopping at a section number. A number without its version line is only half a citation.

Care Act 2014, notice on the contents page. Version Latest available (Revised) as at 2 September 2026, legislation.gov.uk, read on 3 September 2026.

What happens to a right once it is recognised?

It becomes writing. A need that passes the criteria moves into a plan, and the plan is the document the money follows, which is why the next page in this chain matters as much as this one: the care and support plan explains what the document must contain and how a copy is asked for. Where the right in question is about the shape of a life rather than the hours in it, the same writing applies, and taking part locally follows it there.

Where a right has been recognised and then left undelivered, the routes that exist are set out in changing your support, which treats a review and a complaint as procedures with steps rather than as letters written in the hope of an answer.

Do the words themselves carry weight?

More than most people expect, because the qualification decides which law applies. The difference between a learning disability and a learning difficulty, and the reason the two travel together in speech and apart in statute, is set out in what a learning disability is.

Sources read for this page

• Care Act 2014, revised text on legislation.gov.uk, version Latest available (Revised) as at 2 September 2026
• Care and Support (Eligibility Criteria) Regulations 2015, SI 2015 No. 313, text as made
• Care and support statutory guidance, Department of Health and Social Care, updated 22 July 2025
• Equality Act 2010, revised text on legislation.gov.uk

Each source above was opened on 3 September 2026. Where a page here prints a section number or a figure, the source line beside it names the version that number was read from.