Part III Local Authority Services
7 Functions of local authorities.
1
In relation to persons who are or have been suffering from mental disorder a local authority may, with the approval of the Secretary of State and shall, to such extent as he may direct, make arrangements for any of the following purposes—
a
the provision, equipment and maintenance of residential accommodation, and the care of persons for the time being resident in accommodation so provided;
b
the exercise by the local authority of their functions F1. . . in respect of persons under guardianship (whether under the guardianship of a local authority or of any other person);
c
the provision of any ancillary or supplementary services;
d
the supervision of persons suffering from mental handicap who are neither liable to detention in a hospital nor subject to guardianship.
2
The reference in subsection (1)(a) of this section to the care of persons for the time being resident in accommodation provided by a local authority includes, in the case of persons so resident who are under the age of 16 years, the payment to those persons of such amounts as the local authority think fit in respect of their personal expenses where it appears to that authority that no such payment would otherwise be made.
F23
No arrangements under paragraph (a) or (c) of subsection (1) above may be given effect to in relation to a person to whom section 115 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 (exclusion from benefits) applies solely—
a
because he is destitute; or
b
because of the physical effects, or anticipated physical effects, of his being destitute.
4
Subsections (3) and (5) to (8) of section 95 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999, and paragraph 2 of Schedule 8 to that Act, apply for the purposes of subsection (3) above as they apply for the purposes of that section, but for the references in subsection (5) and (7) of that section and in that paragraph to the Secretary of State substitute references to a local authority.