The annual return is now available for services to complete between 9 January and 19 March 2023.
Each year, we ask you to complete an annual return. This gives us important information that helps us plan, inform and carry out our inspections and improvement work. We also share some of the information with other organisations, such as the Scottish Social Services Council and the Scottish Government, and we use it to produce several statistical publications that you can view on our website.
The intelligence we gather helps us target our improvement activity and support within social care. It is a great source of baseline data across a variety of health and wellbeing indicators which we use to identify, drive and track improvement, for example infection control, nutrition and the recruitment and retention of staff. The data also helps us to identify trends and topics by both geographical area or service type, so that we can see where best to focus our improvement support work, for example, improvement workshops or new resources and guidance for care services across the sector.
The annual return is available for services to complete through our online eForms system. All service types must complete their annual returns electronically, using the Care Inspectorate’s eForms system. You can access this here.
All services registered before 1 October 2022 must complete an annual return. If your service registered on or after 1 October 2022, you should still try to complete an annual return this year. Although it’s not mandatory, we will still be able to use any information supplied. The information you put in will automatically appear in the next annual return and you will then only need to enter any information that has changed.
Remember - even if your service is inactive, you must submit an annual return.
If you have any questions about the annual returns, please read our frequently asked questions.