Services for children and young people in Glasgow are improving lives and having a positive impact, inspectors have said.
That was the key finding of a joint inspection of services for children and young people in the Glasgow Community Planning Partnership. The inspection was carried out by the Care Inspectorate, with input from education, health and police inspectors, between November 2016 and January 2017.
Inspectors looked at a wide range of services to assess how well they were working together to make a positive difference to the lives of children, young people and their families. They looked at how services are delivered by staff and examine how well they are led, planned and organised.
Across nine key indicators of performance, inspectors evaluated three as ‘very good’. These included securing improvements in the wellbeing of children and young people, the impact services were having on children and young people, and the leadership of improvement and change.
Four indicators were evaluated as ‘good’, while two indicators were evaluated as ‘adequate’. These were ‘assessing and responding to risks and needs’ and ‘planning for individual children.’
In their report, inspectors said strong leadership was driving an ambitious vision to improve the life chances of all children and young people in Glasgow through earlier intervention and better prevention.
Inspectors were confident that the lives of many children and young people growing up in Glasgow were improving as a result of services delivered by the community planning partnership.
Children and young people were being ably assisted to stay safe, and live healthy, active and achieving lives as a result of the help provided by committed and responsive staff. Those in need of protection were being kept safe as a result of prompt multi-agency action in all but a very few cases.
Inspectors also said some inconsistency in the quality of assessments of risk and need meant a few children did not receive help as quickly as they should have to ensure their safety and wellbeing. Appropriate planning was not always in place to manage risk, meet need and secure caring and stable environments for individual children and young people.
Karen Reid, chief executive of the Care Inspectorate said: “Strong leadership and an ambitious vision for services across the city meant that the lives of many children and young people growing up in Glasgow were improving.
“Our inspectors saw a real focus on nurture and actively addressing inequality, which was leading to real benefits for many vulnerable children and young people, including those living in deprived areas.
“We were pleased to note this valuable development of a nurturing ethos across a range of services, especially for those who were looked after and care leavers.
“Services which all children use, like health and education, showed a clarity of purpose in tackling deprivation which we strongly welcome.
“Where children need specialist support, we found a responsive approach with very good examples of targeted services like homework clubs for kinship carers, and bespoke support to the Roma community. “Glasgow demonstrated particular strengths in supporting unaccompanied children and young people seeking asylum.
“We have highlighted some areas in which we are confident partners can make further improvements. These are aimed at using the inspection findings to ensure consistently high standards of support across the city.”
The full inspection report is available here: badlink/jointinspectionglasgow