The Care Inspectorate has today published a report on Criminal Justice Social Work Serious Incident Reviews.

Serious Incident Reviews are carried out by local authority criminal justice social work services to make sure lessons are learned if things go wrong when an offender is on licence or statutory supervision such as a community payback order.

The Care Inspectorate scrutinises and comments on reviews carried out by local authorities to monitor their quality and share good practice.

Today’s report by the Care Inspectorate has highlighted several areas of improvement since the last review published in 2015. It highlights successful good practice across Scotland found in reviews received by the Care Inspectorate between February 2015 and December 2017. The report also makes recommendations where further improvements should be made.

Gordon Weir, interim chief executive of the Care Inspectorate said: “Where an offender is on licence or community supervision, there is – rightly – intense public interest in how they are supervised.

“Effective criminal justice social work services play an important role in reducing re-offending and can support individuals to live a life free from crime.

“As we report today, we have seen an improvement in the quality of comprehensive reviews but some initial reviews lacked necessary detail. Having to ask for more information because initial information is insufficient can prolong the time taken to get learning quickly back into the system. Nonetheless, most of the reviews we received were undertaken in a thorough and well-considered manner and demonstrated a high standard of quality assurance practice.

"However, we have again highlighted the need for more consistent reporting from some local authorities.

“We have seen an improvement in partnership working in reviews since our last report; this is important to ensure that any learning is shared locally across all the agencies working to support people involved with justice services and help keep communities safe.

“While not all serious incidents are avoidable, undertaking serious incident reviews should be directed at maximising learning and preventing avoidable serious incidents wherever possible.

“Particularly welcome then, is the fact that some local authorities have invested resources in development for their staff and partner agencies to strengthen their approaches to serious incident reporting and reviewing. We encourage more local authorities and their partners to do likewise.”

You can find the report here.