The Care Inspectorate’s link inspector arrangements for each local authority area serve six main purposes.  These are:

  • monitoring the performance and quality of social work services;
  • monitoring the performance of the partnership’s public protection arrangements;
  • identifying factors which are supporting social work services to deliver good or improved outcomes and any barriers;
  • highlighting risks to the above and their potential impact;
  • identifying good practice within social work service and disseminating these more widely;
  • supporting partners efforts to build capacity for continuous improvement.

Following each joint inspection, the link inspector continues to work with the CPP with an appropriate level of focus on improvement activity recorded in the CPP’s action plan.  Where necessary, they will provide support and challenge in agreed activities and/or signpost CPPs to appropriate sources of assistance.  This may include support from other scrutiny bodies.

When a partnership’s performance in key areas of practice has been evaluated as either ‘weak’ or ‘unsatisfactory’, the Care Inspectorate and partners may conduct progress review inspection activity to provide assurance that effective action is being taken by the CPP to reduce risks and address areas of concern. In these circumstances the intention and timescale for follow-up scrutiny will be recorded in the published report.

Where the findings of the inspection identify significant concerns, the link inspector may have a more formal monitoring role to provide senior managers in the Care Inspectorate and scrutiny partners with assurance that appropriate action is being taken to address weaknesses.

 

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