The Care Inspectorate has today published the first ever overview report on a five year programme of inspections of services for children and young people in Scotland.
Between 2012 and 2017 the Care Inspectorate led a series of 32 joint inspections of services for children and young people – one in each of the 32 local authority areas in Scotland – in partnership with other scrutiny bodies including Education Scotland, Healthcare Improvement Scotland and HM Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland.
Inspections considered how well services met the needs of children and young people, including those identified as most vulnerable. The Care Inspectorate has today published the findings of this five year programme of inspection.
The report says: “With some exceptions, partnerships generally demonstrated improved outcomes, despite the pressure on available resources over the period. This was a notable achievement.
“In the majority of partnerships, we found a strong ethos, commitment to and delivery of the active and meaningful participation of children, young people and families and other stakeholders.
“We saw evidence of the comprehensive and systematic involvement of children, young people and families in the planning of services across the majority of partnerships as the programme of inspections progressed. We welcome the strengths and embedding of change, particularly around the involvement of children and young people in decisions about them.
“However, there are a number of areas where concerted effort is required to improve. For example, some children and young people were experiencing delays in accessing the right health service at the right time, including mental health services, and delays in planning for permanency had significant adverse impacts on the outcomes for children and young people.”
The report compared data over time and builds on a considerable weight of evidence over this period. Inspectors met with 1,502 parents and carers and 2,744 children and young people all over Scotland and discussed their experience of services. They also reviewed more than 3,000 case records relating to children and young people and analysed more than 7,000 staff survey responses.
Peter Macleod, chief executive of the Care Inspectorate said: “Our strategic joint inspections, carried out with our partners, help us answer the question ‘what difference do services accessed by children and young people across Scotland make to their lives, and to the lives of their families?’
“We want to assess how well services are planned and delivered so that we can continue to see improvement, and ensure that all children are supported to reach their full potential.
“This overview of the past five years of inspection work is significant because it helps identify areas of achievement and areas where more can, and must, be done.”
The report is available here: http://bit.ly/jointinspectionofcypfindings