Children and young people's survey
During the inspection it is important that we hear as much as possible from the children and young people using services and we have adapted our methodology to enable the views of children and young people to be prominent. We have developed a survey specifically to hear feedback from children and young people aged between 8 - 15 year olds. There is also a separate survey for parents and carers.
We want to hear the views of children and young people as well as their parents and carers about their personal wellbeing and outcomes.
We anticipate that surveys are completed electronically although where this is not possible other means of distribution can be agreed with the inspection lead.
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Registration requirements for residential services and care workers for children and young people as they move into adulthood
Joint statement by the Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC) and the Care Inspectorate.
We’ve had some questions about the registration requirements for workers and services providing continuing care for young people over the age of 16 and under 26 years following the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act, Part 11 Continuing Care. We have considered the issue and decided not to change anything.
The Continuing Care legislation supports continuing care for young people beyond the age of 16 and into young adulthood and this may mean for some residential childcare services they are not only caring for children and young people but also for young adults.
The introduction of Continuing Care has raised questions about how staff and services should be registered with the SSSC and the Care Inspectorate, given that young people will move from childhood to adulthood, while being supported by the same workers and services.
The agreed approach is that there will be no registration changes to either the services registered by the Care Inspectorate or the individual workers registered with SSSC in respect of residential services. So, care homes for children and young people and school care accommodation services will continue to be registered with the Care Inspectorate as residential childcare services. Those working in these settings will also continue to be registered on the parts of the SSSC Register for childcare and residential school care so there will not be any changes to their registration.
Both the SSSC and the Care Inspectorate will expect services and staff providing care and support to young people under Continuing Care to have the skills and knowledge and the services to develop policies to reflect the specific needs of the group for which they are providing care and support.
This approach ensures that the appropriate degree of robust regulation is maintained without placing any extra requirement on workers or services, and supports the development of innovative services for young people to get the best support into their adult life. Legislative arrangements for the registration of foster care agencies and adult placement agencies are separate to this and the Care Inspectorate will issue guidance shortly on this point.
Reporting
The findings from the inspections will be published in a public report. This will address the four inspection statements and provide an evaluation of the quality framework quality indicator 2.1.
Prior to publication, a confidential draft is sent to the chair of the CPP, chief executive of the council, chief executive of the health board, and the Police Scotland divisional commander for the area. In addition to the written report, the young inspection volunteers will provide accessible feedback aimed at children and young people which will be shared with the CPP.
Reports are published on the Care Inspectorate’s website and a press release will be issued on the day of publication.
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Sharing information with other inspection bodies
Scrutiny bodies work together through a shared risk assessment process within Local Area Networks (LAN) to identify and agree the key scrutiny risks in each of Scotland’s 32 council areas. Each LAN is responsible for sharing local information and intelligence between scrutiny bodies, carrying out risk assessments and for engaging productively with respective councils around scrutiny activity.
Inspection findings are shared with scrutiny partners and other relevant inspectorates for the purposes of contributing to this shared risk assessment process which is led by Audit Scotland.
The National Scrutiny Plan for local government is one of the key outputs from the shared risk assessment work.
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Inspection scope
Inspection activity is designed to enable us to include in reports, assurance about the effectiveness of partners’ work in improving outcomes for children and young people at risk of harm.
Sources of intelligence used to determine the scope of the inspection include:
- nationally and locally collated data; reports published by community planning partners such as single outcome agreements (SOA), local outcome improvement plans (LOIP); children’s services plans; NHS Local Delivery Plan; child protection committee business plans; corporate parenting plans; and progress reports.
- engagement with the CPP.
- the self-evaluation and supporting evidence provided by the CPP.
- the results of the staff survey.
- the results of the children and young people’s survey and the parents and carers survey
- findings of previous inspections carried out by the Care Inspectorate and scrutiny partners, including findings from inspections of relevant registered care services.
- intelligence held by the Care Inspectorate such as findings from investigations of complaints.
From early in the inspection footprint, the inspection team review information and evidence to record areas where they judge there to be no significant concerns, areas of uncertainty, or areas of concern. Activities during the inspection aim to answer areas of uncertainty and/or confirm them as either areas of strength to be commended, or areas of concern which require action to improve.
The specific scrutiny activities carried out may vary between areas being inspected. This is to ensure that the inspection is able to answer questions relating to the delivery and effectiveness of services in each area.
However, in all inspections, scrutiny activities involve:
- reading a sample of children’s records;
- meeting with children, young people and families receiving services locally;
- speaking with staff and managers from a range of agencies who deliver services locally; and
- observing key multi-agency processes.
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Matters of concern arising during the inspection
At any point during an inspection, inspectors may have cause to believe that a child or adult is at risk of harm as a result of abuse or poor practice. In these circumstances, inspectors have a responsibility to report their concerns and ensure that services with a responsibility to investigate and take the necessary actions to protect the child or adult at risk are able to do so.
Addressing matters of concern during a joint inspection
- Each CPP will have identified a lead member of staff that the inspection lead will liaise with when a concern is raised. This will normally be a senior manager in children’s social work.
- The inspection lead will ensure that inspectors, local file readers and associate assessors know what to do when they are significantly concerned about an issue and they will be guided to complete a concern form.
- Concerns will be discussed with the inspection lead who will decide if the concern needs to be brought to the attention of the local lead member of staff in the CPP.
- The local lead member of staff will take action in line with the relevant inter-agency procedures to report all instances where it is believed that a child or adult is at immediate risk of harm, or, may have experienced abuse which has hitherto not been the subject of a satisfactory investigation.
- The referral from the Care Inspectorate will be recorded on the local case management system. They will also be recorded on a record.
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Partnership discussions
Discussions between community planning partners and members of the joint inspection team take place throughout the course of the inspection. Some of these will be at set intervals, whilst others may be as and when the need arises (see guidance). The purpose and representation at each meeting will be dependent upon the phase of the inspection.
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Inspection footprint
Joint inspections of services for children and young people at risk of harm encompass two main phases and take place over 22 weeks from notification to publication of the inspection report. However, the actual time may vary as we do not count school holiday weeks.
Phase One involves submission of a pre-inspection return by the CPP; the issue of a staff survey and a review of children’s and young people’s records. Following this, surveys for children and young people and parents and carers will be issued.
Phase Two involves the submission of a position statement and supporting evidence by the CPP; and a week of engagement activity, including contacts with children and families and focus groups with key staff. Inspectors are usually on site in the area for a total of five days during the second phase.
Over the course of the inspection, inspectors will hold three professional partnership discussions with leaders and managers from the CPP.
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