Joint inspections of services for children and young people
Our approach
In 2017, Scottish Ministers asked us to work with scrutiny partners to take a more focused look at children and young people in need of care and protection. Our joint inspections therefore take account of their experiences and outcomes by looking at the services provided for them by health visitors, school nurses, teachers, doctors, social workers, police officers and lots of other people who work with them and their families.
Children and young people have told us about the importance of being able to experience sincere human contact and enduring relationships. They want to be able to build trust through consistent relationships with adults and they want to be supported to maintain contact with those people who are most important in their lives. Our approach therefore looks carefully at how well services and systems are organised so that they can experience continuity in their care and develop and sustain lasting relationships.
We believe that staff who are well trained and who feel valued and empowered, are more likely to be able to provide high quality services for children and young people. We therefore explore how well staff are supported to carry out their task.
We know that partners recognise that assessment and planning are critical to ensure the safety of, and improving outcomes for, children and young people. However, we also know that performance in assessment and planning is not as consistently strong across the country as it needs to be and we will look to see if robust quality assurance and high quality reflective supervision are in place.
Our inspections also consider whether legal measures are being used appropriately to achieve security and stability for vulnerable children. Inspections include a focus on the role played by those working in adult services to protect children and young people and support sustained positive change for them and their families.
Strong collaborative leadership is essential within the challenging context of providing high quality public services in an integrated landscape. We consider the effectiveness of collaborative leadership, including leadership of the child protection committee and its relationship with chief officers. We look at how well leaders can demonstrate what difference they are collectively making to the lives of children in need of protection and those for whom they are corporate parents. We also identify any barriers that affect continued improved performance.
We started the current round of joint inspections of services for children in need of care and protection in August 2018 and will continue to review and revise the approach over the course of these inspections. Following the suspension of joint inspections in 2020 due to Covid 19, the current round has resumed with a focus on children at risk of harm.
How we do it
Our inspections last for a number of months. We collect information about the area before we visit it. This helps us to understand what happens there and what is affecting the way that services are being provided.
During the inspection, a team of inspectors from the Care Inspectorate and other scrutiny partners:
- speak with the staff
- speak with children and young people and listen to their views
- speak with parents and carers
- read information about the children and young people.
This gives us the chance to find out if children, young people and their families are getting the help that they need and if services are making a difference to their lives. What individual people tell us during inspection is confidential. Our reports do not include any information about them or their family, or anything that could identify them. However, we do have a duty to pass on information if there are concerns about someone’s safety.
After our inspection, we publish a report on our website about what we found for the area. Our inspection reports set out what works well and what could improve. We expect the community planning partnership to take action on any recommendations we make for improvements.
Getting involved
What you think really matters. If we are inspecting your area, and you have experience of services, you may want to speak to us about the help that you have been getting.
We will offer a range of ways for you to give us feedback. As well as a survey we will arrange one-to-one discussions and group meetings. Our one-to-one discussions can take place in person, or we can contact you by phone or other ways such as Facetime or MS Teams.
If you give us information anonymously, we may not be able to get in contact with you if you raise concerns about your own safety or the safety of anyone else. If you have such concerns, we would encourage you to contact your local authority and ask for their child protection or adult protection service. You can also contact Childline on 0800 1111. If we have any concerns about the safety of individuals, we will share this with protection agencies in the relevant area.
Our inspection team also includes young inspection volunteers. These are young people aged 18 – 26 with experience of care services who help us with our inspections. If you are a young person, you can choose to speak with one of them and you can have someone to support you when you meet them. If you are a young person and want to know more about becoming a young inspection volunteer or how to get involved, click here to find out more.
The Promise
The Care Inspectorate is #Keeping The Promise of the independent care review. We are working across six workstreams internally and externally to influence and support application of the Promise,
Our strategic scrutiny children and young people team is committed to ensuring that our scrutiny and improvement activity is focused on the experiences of children and the impact of services on their lives.
Inspection volunteers with care experience are key members if our local scrutiny teams. We will amplify the voice of the child in what we do, how we do it and how we report on it.
More information
The Guide provides information for community planning partnerships (CPP) about the process for the joint inspection of services for children and young people in need of care and protection. This includes services for children under the age of 18 years, or young people up to 26 years if they have been previously looked after. It should be read in conjunction with the quality framework for children and young people in need of care and protection (QIF) for self-evaluation of services.
Find out more:
- Our joint inspection reports can be found here.
- Joint inspections of services for children and young people in need of care and protection Review of findings from the inspection programme 2018-2020
- Joint inspections of services for children and young people A report on the findings of inspections 2014-16
- The Guide
Temporary changes to variations during Covid-19
Variation changes for care homes and care at home extended to April 2023
Social care continues to face challenges as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, and we continue to support the care sector by adapting what we do, when needed.
To support services to provide support to a wider group of people, there will continue to be no requirement for providers to submit a variation for any care service type where:
- a care home for older people is caring for youngeradults or vice versa
- care at home services care for clients with different careneeds
- there is a change of operationalhours.
This will continue until April 2023.
In these circumstances, there is no requirement to submit a variation form. Instead, you should simply confirm in writing through eForms, using the notification ‘Changes to service delivery’.
Within the notification, you should note what the change is and confirm the service can meet people’s care and welfare needs.
The notification will not trigger an inspection but may trigger contact from the inspector to discuss the changes you have put in place.
For care homes that are supporting people on an interim basis until care at home is available in their area, there is no requirement to notify the Care Inspectorate. We will get this information from the oversight teams of homes being used in local areas.
Provider and services template
Provider and services template
Update - September 2023
What we have done so far
Following the notification of the thematic review, we issued a survey to social work teams across Scotland. By mid- august we had received responses from all 32 local authority areas. We are now looking at the information from the survey. This is helping us to build a picture about social work’s contribution to how well disabled children and young people’s needs are assessed, planned for, and met.
We have been reading national reports and research to find out what disabled children and young people have already said what is important to them, and about their experiences of support.
Conversations with our key stakeholders, are helping us to develop our ideas about our engagement approaches with children and young people. We are keen that we explore opportunities to ensure that our approach is rights based, accessible and is inclusive.
We will use all the information we have gathered so far to help us identify our focus during the next stage.
Next steps
Four areas have volunteered to help us better understand children and young people’s experiences and the difference social work services are making to their lives. We are pleased to welcome them to this next stage of the review. The areas are:
- Aberdeen city
- Dundee city
- Dumfries and Galloway
- Na h-Eileanan Siar (Western Isles)
We will be working with these social work teams from September 2023 to March 2024.
More information can be found on our website here.
If you have any questions for the review team, they can be contacted via email on:
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
We’d like to thank everyone who has been involved in this review.
Visiting
Test
Inspections overview
- Inspection types
- Inspection teams
- Inspection methodology
- Inspection activities
- Inspection reports
- Quality assurance
- Inspection governance
- Covid-19
Inspection types
Our specific inspection focus and programme at any one time is agreed with the Scottish Government and published in the Care Inspectorate’s Scrutiny, Assurance and Improvement Plan. We take a number of different approaches to inspection, designed to meet different scrutiny objectives. These include, but are not limited to:
Inspections and joint Inspections: inspections of individual local authorities or partnerships in relation to key priority areas. Local authorities are identified for inspection based on a combination of risk assessment and rotation of scrutiny activity.
Progress reviews: return visits to a local authority or partnership to check progress following a previous inspection and set of recommendations. Progress reviews are usually (but not always) carried out where the original inspection identified significant areas for improvement.
Thematic reviews/inspections: inspections carried out in a limited number of local authority or partnership areas to explore a particular area of policy or practice that is of national interest. These reviews may or may not evaluate the performance of individual authorities or partnerships but are primarily designed to explore the national picture relating to a given theme and make national recommendations.
Supported self-evaluations: we are always keen to support and encourage self-evaluation. We may at times work proactively with identified local authorities and partnerships to support and validate their self-evaluation of particular areas of activity.
Inquiries: this approach uses an abbreviated approach to explore a particular theme or issue across the country. It is usually designed as a discrete piece of work, carried out over a relatively short time to produce a quick report that provides insight into the key issues relating to the theme.
Inspection teams
Our inspection teams have an inspection lead with responsibility for effectively delivering and concluding the individual inspection. The lead is supported by a deputy lead and a team of inspectors drawn from the Care Inspectorate and relevant partner scrutiny bodies. Our inspections may be supported by associate assessors and people with lived experience (inspection volunteers). The administration and organisation of inspection activities is managed by a team of strategic support officers.
The size of an inspection team will be determined by the scope, methodology and planned length of the inspection. Sometimes, additional resources may be allocated for specific parts of the inspection. However, most inspections will have a core team of between six and 10 members.
How resources are deployed across the different activities of the inspection, and the timing of activities, is captured on a plan that we call the inspection footprint.
Inspection methodology
For each set of inspections, we develop a quality framework (QIF). The quality framework outlines what we expect the quality of the service provided to be. The frameworks we use in our strategic inspection work are based on the EFQM (European Foundation for Quality Management) excellence model, widely used by organisations for managing change and improving performance. The Health and Social Care Standards are woven throughout the quality indicators.
Overall, the QIF provides a model to support inspection. We examine:
- performance and the outcomes that services achieve for the children and adults who use them
- the processes that support service delivery
- the vision, leadership, management and planning of services.
The quality frameworks are also available to local authorities & partnerships for them to use for self-evaluation purposes.
Inspection activities
The activities carried out by inspection teams to gather information can differ across inspections. However, there are some activities which have been proven to consistently provide good information and are therefore used regularly as part of inspections. These include:
Information and communication
The local authority or partnership can expect to receive full information about the inspection.
Most inspections provide a written guidance document of some sort, explaining the various stages and activities of the inspection, along with timescales.
In most inspections, we ask the local authority or partnership to nominate a local co-ordinator to manage and co-ordinate the various activities for them.
Throughout the course of the inspection, there are pre-planned meetings between key members of the inspection team and the local authority or partnership. These may be called professional or partnership discussions. Their key functions are: for the inspection team to feedback on findings so far; for the local authority or partnership to reflect on those findings; for the parties to discuss arrangements and plans for the next phase of the inspection.
Self-evaluation
It is a priority for the Care Inspectorate to support local authorities and partnerships to evaluate their own progress. Most of our inspections ask the local authority or partnership to provide a position statement and supporting evidence at the beginning of the inspection to help inform the inspection team’s understanding and formulate lines of enquiry.
Talking to children and adults who use services
Understanding the experience of people who use social work and social care services is fundamental to inspection, and we use a range of methods to gather the views of both people and unpaid carers. These are likely to include surveys, interviews, events, focus groups, and a range of activities developed to support specific inspections.
Reviewing records
Reading the records of children and adults who use services (also known as file reading) is a rich source of evidence for the inspection teams and is a part of many inspections. It provides understanding of how processes work and gives a picture of how staff interact with people using services.
Support networks
As well as reading records, many inspections include further examination of the care and support journeys experienced by children and adults by meeting with the staff and other significant people who have been part of that journey. This means that inspectors are able to further explore questions that have arisen from reading case records.
Staff surveys
Many inspections include surveys issued to staff. The inspection team often requests the help of the local authority or partnership in distributing the survey and encouraging staff to respond. The arrangements for issuing the survey, and which staff should receive it, will be discussed with the inspection co-ordinator by the inspection lead and strategic support officer.
Interviews and focus groups with key stakeholders
Most inspections involve focus groups or interviews with key stakeholders, including staff, managers, senior leaders, representatives of other statutory and third sector organisations. Often this takes place towards the end of an inspection as it gives the inspection team a good opportunity to discuss themes and issues that have emerged during other inspection activities.
Inspection reports
Inspection teams use regular team meetings to identify and explore themes that emerge from inspection activities. We make sure that potential findings are triangulated and corroborated through a range of activities before accepting them.
Inspection reports for each strand of inspection activity are tailored to the requirements of that inspection, so there are differences between the reports produced by each strategic inspection team. There will also be differences in the reports produced by each team when they are working on different inspection themes.
However, in general, strategic inspection reports can be expected to contain:
- a summary of key findings and/or strengths and areas for improvement
- an analysis of the inspection findings based on the relevant quality framework
- some form of evaluation of the local authority or partnership’s performance – which may or may not have grades attached
- recommendations for action and/or improvement.
Quality Assurance
We aim to achieve a high quality for all our work and want it to have maximum value for all our stakeholders and help to improve the experience of people who use services. To help us achieve this, each inspection programme has a range of quality assurance arrangements:
Each programme has arrangements for review of the inspection approach and methodology which take account of the learning from each inspection while balancing the need for consistency. A key source of learning is from post inspection questionnaires and feedback from inspection leads and team members. All strategic scrutiny teams are represented on a forum to discuss potential improvements to inspection methodology from experiences across the different workstreams and promote consistency wherever possible. When reading the records of people who use services during inspection, a proportion of the sample is double read to ensure consistency of evaluations and we provide training for all record readers.
At the reporting stage of our inspections, inspection leads present their inspection team’s findings and draft report to a ‘quality and consistency’ panel with representation from each partner scrutiny body for discussion and comment. Reports are then issued to the area inspected for an accuracy check before final editing and publication.
Information governance
Our approach to processing personal data is set out in full in our organisational privacy notice.
Covid-19
The Covid-19 pandemic has had a huge impact on social work and social care services across the country. Because of this, most of our strategic inspection work was paused between March 2020 and spring 2021. Since then, strategic inspections have recommenced with some adjustments to reflect the ongoing risks posed by covid-19 and the pressure on local authority and partnership services.
We continue to be responsive to the trends of the pandemic as we plan for and deliver inspection activities. We have also incorporated learning from the pandemic period in relation to our use of technology, and expect to be using a blend of onsite and distance approaches to carry out inspections moving forward.
Update - January 2024
What we have done since our last briefing in September 2023
We have been working alongside the four areas that came forward to be part of more detailed work.
- Aberdeen city
- Dundee city
- Dumfries and Galloway
- Na h-Eileanan Siar (Western Isles)
We now have staff survey responses from these four areas. We have reviewed these alongside all the evidence we gathered earlier this year from the national survey and our review of existing literature.
This has helped us develop our understanding of social work’s contribution to upholding the rights of disabled children and young people in Scotland.
We have used our findings so far to help us plan our next steps and inform the key questions we will ask children, families and staff.
Our stakeholder community has continued to be involved, helping to shape our approach to engagement activities.
Planning for our next steps is well underway in the four areas and we are grateful for all the time and effort they have already given to this review.
Next steps
We are now entering the busiest stage of our review and will be working with our four areas on the following.
In January we will be reviewing 30 children’s social work’s records in each of the areas. This will help us build our understanding of the effectiveness of assessments, plans and reviews in ensuring children benefit from the right help and the right time. These records have been sampled randomly.
In January we will ask each of the four areas to share a video and information leaflet with children and their parents or carers to inform them of our review and invite them to become involved.
Between 22 January and 29 February we will open an electronic questionnaire for children and young people to complete online. This will be one of a range of ways we will gather views directly from children and young people. The arrangements for completing the questionnaire will be shared by each of the four local authorities.
In February we will be on-site in each of the four areas. We want to gather the views of children and their parents or carers and the staff who work with them. We will meet with children wherever they are most comfortable. For some children this might be with friends or family. For others it might be alongside workers who are important to them. We hope the important people in children’s lives will help us to do this. We will work alongside staff in each of the four areas to ensure we are inclusive and respect children’s rights in our approach.
If you have any questions for the review team, they can be contacted via email on This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
We’d like to thank everyone who has been involved in this review.
Care experienced young people thematic review
Exploring the delivery, experience and impact of services when young people are planning to leave care and after they have moved on
The Care Inspectorate are undertaking a thematic review in relation to the experience of young people in throughcare and aftercare. The roots of this work are in the following reports: A Way Home (p.27) and The Promise (p.93). Both reports suggested the need for reviewing transition services. In agreement with the Scottish Government, the Care Inspectorate has announced this review and work is underway.
A team from the Care Inspectorate will find out how well services are supporting young people and making sure that their rights are respected. We are specifically interested in how young people are supported as they plan for leaving care and after they have moved on. These services may be supporting young people with housing, health or in relation to education or employment. They may also be working with young people who have decided to stay put, including young people in continuing care. At the heart of our approach will be ensuring that we elevate the voice of people with lived experience of these services.
If you have been asked to meet with a member of the team or to complete a survey you should have received information about taking part.
Thank you very much to everyone who completed our national survey which closed on the 22nd May. We have now analysed the information in the survey and it has provided a wealth of information that will help direct the next stages of the review. We particularly welcomed the good practice examples that were highlighted.
In the summer we will be taking a closer look in four different parts of the country. We are pleased to confirm that Shetland, City of Edinburgh, Dumfries and Galloway and North Lanarkshire will be participating in phase two of this review. The review team will be reading records with the lead professionals for five young people in each area in early August. We will then meet young people and staff in each area during two weeks in September. Alongside this, a survey will be open for all the young people of 16+ in and leaving care in each of the four areas plus all regulated housing support services. We will also issue a survey for frontline staff and managers.
We are looking forward to working with the four areas and hearing as much as we can from young people about their experiences and how they feel their rights are being upheld. In November 2024 we will report on what we have found.
More information about this review can be found in the following links: