Our support to local partnerships
Our support to local partnerships
Each strategic inspector acts as link inspector to one or more local authority areas across the country. The key purpose of the link inspector role is to fulfil the Care Inspectorate’s ‘general duty of furthering improvement in the quality of social services’ in relation to local authority social work services. This duty is set out at section 44(1)(b) of the Public Services Reform (Scotland) Act 2010.
The link inspector role has a degree of complexity because few social work services are now provided on a standalone basis. Most are now planned, delivered and monitored through partnership arrangements. Regardless of their specialist area, link inspectors engage across the broad spectrum of social work and care services for adults and older people, children and young people and justice services in their link areas.
The key areas of activity for link inspector work are:
- monitoring the performance and quality of social work services
- monitoring the performance of partnership public protection arrangements
- identifying factors which are supporting social work services to deliver good or improved outcomes, and any barriers
- highlighting risks to the delivery of positive outcomes by social work services, and the potential impact of those risks
- identifying good practice within social work service and disseminating this more widely
- supporting the efforts of local authorities and partnerships to build capacity for continuous improvement.
The Care Inspectorate also provides relationship managers for each council area, with responsibility for assurance and improvement work in relation to regulated services. There is a relationship manager for adult services and one for ELC. The link inspector and relationship managers work closely together.
More information about the relationship manager role can be found here.
You can get information about the link inspector for a particular local authority area by e-mailing the strategic support team at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Information on the link inspector role for local authorities and partnerships can be found here.
Notification on controlled drugs
Notification on controlled drugs
Providers should notify the Care Inspectorate to any adverse events and concerns involving schedule 2, 3, 4, and 5 controlled drugs used in care settings, when they occur, and while the service user is receiving care in the care service.
Please note, it is a legal requirement for care services to notify the Care Inspectorate of the matters listed in this document. Where the requirement is limited to a specific type of care service, this is detailed in the guidance.
Care services and local authorities must use our eForms system to make these notifications.
Secure care pathway review 2022-23
Our approach
We carried out a secure care pathway review between July 2022 and July 2023 to consider the impact of the Secure Care Pathway and Standards that were published in October 2020. The review focused on young people up to the age of 18 who have been placed – or are at risk of being placed – by Scottish local authorities, in secure care accommodation.
The review centred on listening to and understanding the experiences of 30 young people across Scotland before, during and after experiencing secure care accommodation. During the review period we tracked the journeys of these young people and this helped us to consider impact and outcomes over time. The annual inspections of registered secure care providers continue to be carried out. We worked jointly with the inspectors of these services to inform the review, particularly in relation to the ‘during’ stage of young people’s journeys through secure care.
Our review is now complete and you can read the report here.
More information
Information about the secure care pathway and standards can be found here.
Digital performance data
Cost per transaction
User satisfaction
Completion rate
Digital take-up
Deaths of Looked After Children
Deaths of Looked After Children
Local authorities are required to submit written notification within 24 hours of any death of a looked after child to the Care Inspectorate.
Please complete attached form – DLC1
Please note this is separate from the duty of a registered care service to notify us of the death of a service user. These are submitted separately via the registered services eForms.
More information about notification and reporting arrangements can be found here.
Please submit all relevant forms/reports through secure email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
The main contact for this work is:
Karen McCormack, Strategic Inspector
Mobile: 07833 057105
Archived updates
Disabled children and young people: Thematic review 2023-24
On this page you will find information about our national thematic review. We will keep this page updated as we move through the different stages.
Our approach
In April 2023 we notified all local authorities of our intention to undertake a national thematic review with a focus on disabled children and young people up to the age of 18 years. Within the scope of our review, we will focus on the experiences of children who are considered disabled under article 1 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities:
“Persons with disabilities include those who have long term physical, mental intellectual or sensory impairments which any interaction with various barriers may hinder their full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others”
We will provide a national overview of social work’s contribution to how well disabled children and young people’s needs are assessed, planned for, and met. This will include hearing from children about the things that are important to them, their experiences of participation and of receiving care and support. To do this we will structure our review under the following two statements:
- Children and young people are actively heard, informed, and meaningfully involved in decisions about their lives.
- Children’s and young people’s wellbeing has been promoted through high quality child centred planning and bespoke support.
We will carry out the review between May 2023 and May 2024. We will publish a national report in Spring 2024.
More information about the thematic review can be found in the following links:
Working with four local authority areas – a deeper dive
Changes to notifications of deaths of looked after children and deaths of young people in continuing care or receiving aftercare provision
Changes to notifications of deaths of looked after children and deaths of young people in continuing care or receiving aftercare provision
New arrangements for reviewing and learning from the deaths of children and young people came into force on 1 October 2021.
The establishment of the National hub for reviewing and learning from the deaths of children and young people and recently published national guidance for child protection committees undertaking learning reviews will require changes to the ways in which local authorities review the deaths of looked after children and young people experiencing care.
More information about these changes can be found here.