By Kevin Mitchell, Executive Director of Scrutiny & Assurance

The Care Inspectorate has now put a new strategic scrutiny team in place to lead on scrutiny and assurance activity for community justice and criminal justice social work in Scotland, following a request from the Scottish Government.

There will be two strands to the team’s work. During 2018-19 one strand will focus on supporting and validating self-evaluation of community justice in Scotland and the other will focus on inspection of criminal justice social work services, with particular attention on community payback orders. Our intention is to provide a transparent and robust approach to scrutiny and inspection.

Community justice

We will support the implementation of community justice by working closely with partnerships. We recognise that community justice is relatively new and its implementation is still at an early stage having had a transition year and one full year since the introduction of the Community Justice (Scotland) Act 2016. So, this is a good time for each area to take stock in order to better understand the progress being made. This will also give Scottish Government and other scrutiny bodies an idea of the strengths and challenges around.

Due to some of the complexities of community justice, such as the number of partners and the various stages of implementation, we believe the most efficient way to work with community justice partners is to assess:

  • progress made on strategic planning
  • collaborative work across statutory partners and the third sector
  • effectiveness of local strategic groups
  • ability to report on progress made
  • effectiveness of partners in maximising ways of working by using their shared resources in the most efficient and effective way
  • how well leaders are supporting this work and providing clear direction.

As a realistic starting point in 2018-19, supported and validated self-evaluation activity using A guide to self-evaluation of community justice in Scotland will focus on three quality indicators from that guide:

6.2: Planning and delivering services in a collaborative way
8.1: Effective use and management of resources
9.2: Leadership of strategy and direction

However, there is nothing to stop community justice partners using the guide more fully. Although this guide was produced before the new Health and Social Care Standards, we will take every opportunity to direct partnerships to the new standards and reflect these wherever relevant and possible in their self-evaluation and in our published reports.

Key stages in the process

The approach to supported and validated self-evaluation will be as follows.

1. Notification, engagement and support
This will involve support to all partners in undertaking robust and mature self-evaluation, building capacity and guidance on what good supporting evidence looks like.

2. Submission of self-evaluation and supporting evidence
This will be sent to the Care Inspectorate for consideration and validation.

3. Validation activity
This will involve onsite activity by the Care Inspectorate meeting with relevant partners and groups to validate the self-evaluation where this has not been possible from a desk-based approach.

4. Validation letter
A validation letter will be sent to the local community justice partnership and overarching governing group on the self-evaluation. This will also be published on the Care Inspectorate website to ensure community justice partners and stakeholders across Scotland can benefit from any learning. A copy will also be sent to the Scottish Government.

How do we decide which areas will be involved in supported and validated self-evaluation?

We have asked for volunteers. Those who have volunteered may be at different stages in their self-evaluation journey. Some come from areas that feel they are ready to do this work, have already started it or who may wish external validation. Some areas have not yet have commenced self-evaluation activity but have volunteered to receive support in taking this work forward.

Criminal justice social work

It has been more than 10 years since any focused inspection of criminal justice social work in Scotland. However, criminal justice social work has been involved in different strands of our inspection work including the inspection of prison-based social work concluding in 2011, the thematic review of Multi-agency Public Protection Arrangements (MAPPA) published in 2015 and the supported self-evaluation of assessment and case management in 2013.

There has been significant change in criminal justice social work over this time, in particular the introduction of community payback orders in 2011 as part of the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2010. There has been no specific scrutiny since this time to look at how effective the introduction of these orders has been. The presumption against short-term sentences will be extended in 2019 and it is essential that there are community-based options to support this.

Community payback orders

The inspections of criminal justice social work services during 2018-19 will focus on community payback orders. We will consider how well national outcomes and standards are being applied and what difference these orders are making to the lives of individuals who are, or who have been, subject to them.

Using the quality indicator model in A guide to self-evaluation of community justice in Scotland, we will focus on:

  • outcomes for individuals subject to community payback orders, including performance measures against both local and national statistical data
  • impact on and experiences of those subject to community payback orders
  • key processes linked to community payback orders, including quality of risk/needs assessment, planning and intervention
  • fulfilment of statutory duties, performance management and quality assurance
  • leadership of criminal justice social work
  • the services’ capacity for improvement and, in particular, the extent to which criminal justice social work services are prepared for forthcoming changes in relation to the presumption of short sentences.

Funding for criminal justice social work services and initiatives are ring fenced and provided under Section 27. Funding is distributed to each local authority using a new funding formula which was introduced in 2017/18. The inspection team will also explore and comment on this as a specific theme of these inspections.

What quality indicators are we going to look at?

1.1: Improving the life chances and outcomes of those with lived experience
2.1: Impact on people who have committed offences
5.1: Providing help and support when it is needed
5.2: Assessing and responding to risk and need
5.3: Planning and providing effective intervention
5.4: Involving people who have committed offences and their families
6.1: Policies, procedures and legal measures
6.4: Performance management and quality assurance
9.4: Leadership of improvement and change

Our inspection report will include comment on all nine quality indicators, but we will evaluate only five (1.1, 2.1, 5.2, 5.3 and 9.4). We may scope in other quality indicators during the inspection if there is a specific reason to do so.

As the Guide to self-evaluation of community justice in Scotland is focused on a partnership approach to community justice self-evaluation, we have produced specific additional guidance on how to use this for the purpose of self-evaluation of community payback orders. This provides useful questions and details regarding supporting evidence for self-evaluation. It also provides a framework on which the self-evaluation can be completed. This will be published on our website soon.

The approach to inspection will be made up of key stages.

1. Notification, preparation and engagement stage
Once an area is notified that it is being inspected, the lead inspector and strategic support officer will work alongside the area in order to plan for the inspection. This will include advice and guidance on self-evaluation, the case file reading and onsite activities.

 

2. Self-evaluation and supporting evidence
Areas will be asked to submit a self-evaluation and we will require strong supporting evidence to aid validation to this self-evaluation. 

3. Case file reading
We will read a proportionate sample of criminal justice social work records on individuals who are, or have been, subject to a community payback order. This will be done using a set template and guidance.

4. Follow up activity
This will be based on evidence, and findings from stages 2 and 3. This stage will be scoped and proportionate and we will carry out activity where areas of uncertainty remain.

5. Published report
The published report will identify strengths and areas for improvement, make evaluations against quality indicators, identify good practice, make recommendations and comment on capacity for improvement.

How do we decide which area we are going to inspect?

Our approach to inspection is primarily risk based. To help inform this risk-based approach we will take account of the following factors.

  • Information provided by Community Justice Scotland.
  • Information held by Care Inspectorate link inspectors. This will also take account of how well the link inspector has been able to engage with the area
  • Scottish Government statistical information and other information they may have.
  • Information gathered from the Care Inspectorate’s serious incident review process.
  • Previous published reports and information from other scrutiny bodies.
  • Length of time since previously inspected and other scrutiny activity taking place within the area during the time of any proposed inspection.

If you would like to find more information on this please visit the Community Justice section on our website.

Self-evaluation and supporting evidence

Areas will be asked to submit a self-evaluation and we will require strong supporting evidence to aid validation of this self-evaluation.