A Care Inspectorate report on serious incident reviews in justice social work has highlighted positive performance.
Serious incident reviews ensure relevant learning is identified and applied where someone subject to a community order, or who has been released from prison with a condition of social work supervision, has caused or been subject to serious harm.
Today’s report also recommends where further improvements should be made.
A total of 317 serious incident notifications were received by the Care Inspectorate between January 2018 and December 2021, of which 300 met criteria for a serious incident review. These took place across 26 local authorities and predominantly related to acts of serious violence and sexual offences. There were also circumstances in which a person died or was killed which warranted further review.
There was evidence of robust operational and strategic oversight by local authorities who submitted notifications and serious incident reviews. This provides assurance that local authorities are aware of the practice and are committed to continuous improvement.
Reference was made to appropriate assessments being undertaken in almost all serious incident reviews.
There was significant improvement in the percentage of reviews submitted within the expected three-month timescale, enabling learning to get back into the system faster to meaningfully support improvement. Inspectors also found demonstrable improvement in the overall quality and analytical reflection within reviews.
A substantial number of review notifications were not made within five working days. This was often outside the control of the justice social work service. The Care Inspectorate will actively monitor and provide regular updates to support improvement in this area.
The report identified scope to improve the level of specific detail on core elements of practice. This requires local authorities to assure themselves on timeliness of assessments, quality of case management plans, and efficient transfer of information between prison and the community. Revised guidance will support local authorities in providing this.
Edith Macintosh, interim chief executive of the Care Inspectorate said: “Justice social work services supervise and support many people who have committed a wide range of offences. While not every serious incident can be prevented, a review helps improve practice by identifying and sharing lessons learned. The Care Inspectorate quality assures submitted reviews and works with local authorities to ensure important learning has occurred and is applied.
“Today’s report notes an increase in the number of local authorities submitting notifications. This indicates a willingness to use an independent review process to provide assurance that appropriate action was taken.”
The full report is available here.
Revised serious incident review guidance, May 2022 here.
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