Financial harm

This guidance is intended to provide a useful overview for a range of practitioners tasked with safeguarding the welfare and finances of adults who lack capacity. It should help provide professionals and relatives/adults with some confidence in understanding ways to effectively manage the finances of a person who cannot manage their finances themselves. While it is not comprehensive, the guidance does cover the main options available for financial management for an adult who has been assessed as lacking capacity.

This comms and information pack accompanies the theme of ASPire 2025, financial harm affecting older adults. It links with the video designed to raise awareness of the issue. The main comms pack contains ideas for social media posts related to financial harm, useful numbers for the public, images that can be used on local information and Zoom / Teams background templates.

This video, made for Scotland’s national Adult Support and Protection Day 2025, highlights financial abuse of older adults. It looks at potential signs of financial abuse, and who might be especially at risk. This video can be shared with the public to raise awareness and contains helplines who can offer support. A shorter version is also available.

The transcript of the video is attached.

This is an ASPire webinar from February 2025. Its theme is financial harm affecting older adults. It has sessions on multi-agency shared learning from the outcome of the McCulloch Brothers Review (Highland), financial harm, adult Protection and decision-making (Dr Melanie Durowse), and explaining the role of the Office of the Public Guardian in relation to financial harm affecting older adults (Fiona Brown). Slides for selected sessions are also attached.

This pack contains core resources, for instance on professional curiosity, that inform all ASP work. It also contains financial harm specific resources. Within the pack, there are links to numerous videos and podcasts, including those where people speak of their lived experience of financial harm.

Financial harm includes any type of harm which adversely impacts on an adult’s finances. Under the Adult Support and Protection Act (Scotland) 2007, a Council Officer has the legal right to ask any financial institution for financial information in relation to the adult (under a Section 10 request). This briefing outlines the legal framework for Section 10 requests relating to financial harm, the responsibilities of everyone involved, and key considerations in relation to Section 10 requests where financial harm is being investigated.