Joint inspections of adult support and protection
Background
Phase 1 of our programme of joint inspections of adult support and protection services has now concluded, having taken place during 2020-23. The purpose of Phase 1 of the programme was to provide baseline information across the 26 adult protection partnerships not previously inspected in 2017/18. The intention was to follow this programme of inspections with a second phase of scrutiny and/or improvement activity, informed fully by Phase 1 findings.
We are now undertaking further scrutiny across Scotland, at the request of Scottish Ministers and in line with the Scottish Government-led improvement plan.
Phase 2 commenced on 1 August 2023 and will last two years. This phase of the programme will blend scrutiny activity with improvement support and include close collaboration with adult protection partnerships.
Scrutiny approach
Phase 2, first year
The programme provides assurance on the ongoing protection and risk management for adults at risk of harm. The first year of Phase 2 will include revisiting the six adult protection partnerships that were subject to adult support and protection inspections in 2017/18. We will use the inspection methodology we employed in Phase 1. These inspections will focus on key processes and leadership (see our quality indicator framework).
The first year of Phase 2 will also involve further development of the adult support and protection quality improvement framework by inspection partners, with input from stakeholders across the sector.
Phase 2, second year
Activity in the second year of Phase 2 will provide assurance of improvement and will include those partnerships that received inspection reports during Phase 1 where areas of weakness outweighed strengths. Some additional partnerships may also be revisited to provide assurance of improvement.
Additionally in this second year, indicators related to early identification of risk, early intervention and a trauma-informed approach will be applied on a voluntary basis with a select group of partnerships, which will augment their planned self-evaluation processes.
Scrutiny partners
The inspection programme will be led by Care Inspectorate in collaboration with His Majesties’ Inspectorate of Constabulary Scotland (HMICS) and Healthcare improvement Scotland (HIS). Each scrutiny agency has identified dedicated staff with appropriate levels of experience and expertise in adult support and protection. This scrutiny and assurance will be undertaken in the context of health and social care integration.
Phase 2 inspection focus
The focus of our joint inspection will be on:
- independent scrutiny and assurance of how partnerships ensure that adults at risk of harm are kept safe, protected, and supported
- providing assurance to Scottish Ministers about how effectively partnerships have implemented the Adult Support and Protection (Scotland) Act 2007
- taking the opportunity to identify good practice and support improvement more broadly across Scotland
- providing a quality assurance framework for the adult support and protection community to use for multi-agency audit, self-evaluation and improvement activity.
Purpose of activity
The purpose of this programme of joint inspections is to seek assurance that adults at risk of harm in Scotland are supported and protected by existing national and local adult support and protection arrangements. The programme is one element of the Scottish Government-led improvement plan.
The partnership briefing document relating to phase two, first year inspections was prepared by the inspection team to give you an overview of the joint inspection programme and is available on our website. The documents below are referenced within the partnership briefing document.
- Definition of adult protection partnerships
- The public services reform (joint inspections) Scotland regulations 2011
- ASP Quality Indicator Framework
- Case File Sample Guidance
- Pre inspection return FAQs
- Position Statement template
- Supporting Evidence List
- Local authority notification letter
The joint inspection team has made a number of other documents available to support partnerships. Each partnership will receive the relevant documents at the appropriate time.
- ASP overview for staff
- Staff Briefing Focus Groups
- Guidance for remote access to files
- Key processes and timescales
- Pre inspection return March 2021 (.xlsx)
- Phase 1 main sample file reading guidance
- Phase 1 main sample file reading tool
Our inspections take account of the adult support and protection code of practice. For us to understand the degree to which partnerships were progressing with implementation we issued a single question survey. The survey was shared with Chief Social Work Officers, adult protection committee conveners and lead officers. The question was 'Please briefly describe your partnership’s approach to key processes, including the role of the Council Officer, around inquiries/investigations in light of the revised Code of Practice'. Please find our summary findings from that survey.
A communication and engagement strategy is available in relation to our Phase 2, first year quality improvement framework (QIF). The QIF is being designed in collaboration with the National Implementation Group and other stakeholders. Key elements of this will be used to inform our supported self-evaluation activity in Phase 2, second year.
We are at the very early stages of developing Phase 2, second year methodologies and will aim to include any relevant updates and material here when it is appropriate to do so.
Please email any enquiries to the joint inspection team at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Joint inspections of services for adults
Our approach
The Public Bodies (Joint Working) (Scotland) Act 2014 sets the legislative framework for integrating adult health and social care.
Integrating health and social care services is important to ensure that people have quick access to the range of services and support they need, that their care feels seamless to them and that they experience good outcomes and high standards of support. This is particularly vital for the increasing numbers of people with multiple, complex, long-term conditions in Scotland.
Since April 2017, the Care Inspectorate and Healthcare Improvement Scotland have had joint statutory responsibility to inspect and support improvement in the strategic planning and commissioning of integrated approaches.
In 2019, the Ministerial Strategic Group (MSG) for Health and Community Care asked us to further develop our joint inspections to focus on how integration impacts on people’s outcomes, to consider the performance of the whole health and social care partnership and to ensure a balanced focus across health and social care provision.
In response to the MSG recommendation, the Care Inspectorate and Healthcare Improvement Scotland have reviewed our joint inspection methodology to answer the following question:
“How effectively is the partnership working together, strategically and operationally, to deliver seamless services that achieve good health and wellbeing outcomes for adults?”
In order to address the question over the broad spectrum of adult health and social care services, we will conduct a rolling programme of themed inspections, looking at how integration of services positively supports people’s experiences and outcomes. It’s important to note that these thematic inspections are not considering the quality of specialist care for each care group but are simply a means of identifying groups of people with similar or shared experiences through which to understand if health and social care integration arrangements are resulting in good outcomes. In this way, we’re looking at integration through the lens of different care groups which, taken together, will in time build a picture of what is happening more broadly in health and social care integration and how this is experienced by people and the outcomes achieved.
How we do it
Our inspections last for a number of months. We work closely with the partnership to co-ordinate our inspection activities.
We have a range of ways to gather information that will help us to assess how integrated services in the area are helping to improve outcomes for people and their unpaid carers. These include:
- asking for information from the partnership
- speaking to people who use health and social care services and their unpaid carers
- speaking with staff, managers and leaders across the partnership
- reading people’s records.
We communicate regularly with the partnership and keep them up to date with our findings.
After the inspection, we publish a report about our findings on the Care Inspectorate’s and Healthcare Improvement Scotland’s websites. The report explains what we have found, identifies strengths and points out areas that could be improved. We agree an Improvement plan with the partnership to address those areas.
Getting involved
The voices of people who use health and social care services and of their unpaid carers are at the centre of our inspection. We will use as many opportunities as we can to get people involved and talk to them about their experiences of health and social care services.
We have developed an engagement framework to support all our engagement activity. The framework sets out 12 statements about positive outcomes and experiences that we will speak with people about.
More information
You can find full information about joint adult inspections:
- The Partnership guide sets out the inspection process step by step and provides all the information that partnerships need to manage their part in the inspection.
- The Quality Indicator Framework (QIF) explains the criteria we use to evaluate quality in our inspections
- The Engagement framework provides a set of “I” statements to help us consider the experience of people who use health and social care services and their unpaid carers. It underpins all the engagement with people and unpaid carers that takes place during the inspection.
- Our joint inspection reports can be found here.
Children and young people
Our role in children and young people’s services
It is our job to make sure that every child and young person experiencing care in Scotland gets the best quality of care that meets their needs and choices and protects their rights. This is whether they live at home with their families, live in a children’s home, are fostered or adopted, stay in secure or school care accommodation or use respite services. We also inspect some services that provide care for families, such as women’s refuges, and housing support services that cater for young people.
Our strategic team assesses how well professionals from different disciplines and agencies work together. This is to make sure that children and young people who need care and protection are kept safe and their needs met.
We assess how well services and partnerships self-evaluate and learn from adverse events to improve children’s experiences and outcomes.
Information about inspections for young people
Following some feedback we had from young people, we have created posters that explain what inspections are. You can download our poster for residential child care or our poster for foster care and display this in your service to help young people understand what inspections are and how they can get involved.
The Promise in action animation
Our new animation co-designed with our young inspection volunteers demonstrates The Promise in action – by making sure that our young people’s voices authentically influence our work.
Text to complain
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Complaints research from 2019 showed that less than one percent of the 1,400 children and young people in residential care settings raised concerns to us about their care. To handle complaints well, services need to have a healthy listening culture where people’s concerns are taken seriously and acted upon quickly. Children and young people can text us directly on 07870 981 785 if they are not happy about their care. You can watch our short video about the text to complain service here, or download a poster to print here. You can also complain by filling in our complaints form online, calling us on 0345 600 9527 or emailing us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. |
Our young inspection volunteers
We work with 15 young inspection volunteers (aged between 18-26 years old) who visit children and young people’s services with us when we inspect.
Our young inspection volunteers talk with children and young people who use services and listen to their views. They meet managers to find out how well they involve children and young people to develop and improve services and they hear how well partnerships are fulfilling their responsibilities and duties as corporate parents.
If you would like to find out more about becoming a young inspection volunteer click here.
Click here to see some of the videos they have done for our joint inspections.
Our quality frameworks
Our quality frameworks support care services to self-evaluate. Our inspectors also use these when they inspect and look at the quality of care provided by services.
Our children and young people’s inspection teams began using key question 7 in April 2022. As part of everyone's journey to meet the Promise, we reviewed key question 7 with inspectors, young people who experience or have experienced care and providers to evaluate the impact it was having and how well it was supporting the sector to self-evaluate its own performance. We made some changes as a result of this review and agreed that we will continue to use key question 7 for inspections from April 2024 onwards. We have also published new self-evaluation toolkits to support the sector. To support the launch we delivered webinars for care homes for children and young people and schoolcare accommodation and mainstream boarding schools and school hostels.
You can access the new KQ7 documents, full quality frameworks, and toolkits on The Hub here.
In April 2024 we held a live, online, briefing for providers, managers and external managers of registered services for children and young people. During the webinar we shared some overarching messages for the sector, on developments and practice themes identified throughout the previous inspection year; our methodology for the coming inspection year; and the increasing focus on young people’s voice and participation. You can watch the recording of the webinar here.
Care homes
- We have published Care Homes for Children and Young People - The Design Guide to support applicants and providers with design, planning and construction considerations for new or converted care homes for children and young people.
- We spoke to children about what was important to them in care home design, and included quotes from young people in the guidance.
- To support with emergency situations, we have published Guidance for providers of care homes for children and young people on the emergency relaxation of conditions of numbers.
Secure services
- The Secure Care Pathway and Standards Scotland were created to improve the experiences of children and young people who are in, or on the edges of, secure care, leading to better and brighter outcomes.
- We have published a Protocol and procedures for secure accommodation services on the use of registered emergency beds.
School care accommodation services
The Registrar of Independent Schools, the Care Inspectorate and Education Scotland have worked together to produce Guidance on effective safeguarding for boards of governors in independent schools, to assist with self-evaluation and monitoring of child protection and safeguarding practices.
To set out our approach to regulating guardianship arrangements in boarding schools we have published Guidance for the regulation of guardianship arrangements in boarding schools.
Supporting unaccompanied asylum seeking children (UASC)
We understand that meeting the needs of asylum-seeking and refugee children and young people across Scotland is very challenging and we believe that we all need to work together, to make any improvements that are needed. To help inform this work we hosted a webinar, with input from COSLA, Scottish Guardianship Service, and the Scottish Refugee Council. The webinar covered:
- the background to UASC policy and the National Transfer Scheme
- information about what support and services are available
- the context around why young people are arriving to Scotland, and what their lived experiences have been
- an opportunity to explore any queries or concerns, and share examples of best practice.
The content is relevant for local authorities, social workers, residential childcare staff, fostering services, and foster carers. You can watch the recording of the webinar here.
To better support how we engage with children and young people who have English as a second or foreign language, we have developed this poster for services to display. It’s designed to let young people know that we are happy to book an interpreter to chat with them.
Restrictive practices
- We understand that the use of restrictive practices in the promotion of rights, independence and choice for children and young people conflicts with promoting and maintaining a duty of care by taking protective action to keep young people safe.
- We are a member of Restraint Reduction Scotland, and have worked collaboratively with the Scottish Physical Restraint Action Group (SPRAG) to develop a Self-evaluation tool: The use of restrictive practices. It is designed to support services to evaluate how well they are doing in using restrictive practices and identify areas where they want to improve.
- To support the launch of the self-evaluation tool, we held two webinars; a recording of the webinars combined can be found here.
Depriving and restricting liberty for children and young people
We recognise that services are treading a delicate balance between taking necessary action to keep children and young people safe, whilst not unnecessarily restricting liberty. Our new position paper aims to set out our attitude, expectation, and actions around the restriction and deprivation of liberty in care home, school care and secure accommodation services. This includes circumstances where children and young people may be deprived of their liberty, where their liberty is restricted, or where this is a risk through environmental design and/or care practices. You can see the paper here.
Children and young people placed cross border and at a distance from home
Distance placements refer to any child who has been placed in a care setting outside of their home community. You can read our report on ‘Distance placements: exploration of practice, outcomes, and children’s rights’ here.
In January 2022 we carried out a short thematic review of children and young people placed cross border on Deprivation of Liberty Orders. We spoke to nine of the children face to face, and had a telephone interview with one young person. You can read the report about this here.
Admissions
In aspiring to make residential care a positive choice for all children in Scotland who require it, and to promote best practice in admissions and matching, we published Matching Looked After Children and Young People: Admissions Guidance for Residential Services.
Care planning
To support staff in services to develop personal plans for children and young people we developed a Guide for providers on personal planning: children and young people. We spoke with young people to gather their views, and included quotes from young people throughout the document.
Records and notification reporting
By law all services must keep certain records, and tell us if particular events take place. You can read our Records that all registered children and young people’s care services must keep and guidance on notification reporting here.
Staffing
To support providers to ensure they are appropriately assessing and providing staffing levels to meet the needs of young people in their care, we published Guidance for providers on the assessment of staffing levels.
Corporate parenting
As a corporate parent, we carry out many of the roles any parent should.
We work with other corporate parents to promote the wellbeing of all children and young people and keep them safe from harm. We work hard to enable children and young people to have as much of a say as possible.
Read our corporate parenting plan 2021-23.
We have developed Guidance for children and young people’s services on the inclusion of transgender including non-binary young people. This is in response to a number of services who approached us looking for advice on how best to support transgender including non-binary young people. The guidance is based on current good practice and includes real practice examples from the sector.
Stand Up For Siblings
We are a proud member of the Stand Up For Siblings partnership, a Scotland wide initiative to improve and change legislation, policy and practice. It’s about making sure children and young people live with their brothers and sisters, where it is appropriate to do so, and sustain strong and positive lifelong relationships with them. Read the Staying together and connected: getting it right for sisters and brothers: national practice guidance.
Our young inspection volunteers made a big contribution to this award-winning work and made a film about promoting and supporting sibling relationships for children and young people who experience care. Watch the film here.
The Promise
We continue to work to deliver our organisation's contribution to keeping The Promise for children and young people. The Promise is about providing more intensive, preventative support to families so they can stay together where it is safe to do so.
Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry
We work with the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry to investigate the abuse of children in care in Scotland.
Continuing care
We have been supporting the Staying Put agenda since 2013 and our role as corporate parents under the Children and Young people (Scotland) Act 2014 includes supporting young people moving from care to adulthood and independence.
Read our Guidance for services on the provision of continuing care, the Continuing Care and the Welfare Assessment: Practice Note and watch the Continuing Care and the Welfare Assessment Webinar Recording.
We were involved in Continuing Care and Your Rights, a project co-created with care experienced young people, CELCIS, and Clan Childlaw. Continuing Care and Your Rights provides accessible information for young people on their right to continuing care.
Continuing improvement
We have created a video to help you learn how to run your own improvement projects using the Model for Improvement and ‘Plan Do Study Act’ (PDSA) cycles. This will also be helpful to both services and providers when progressing areas for improvement made as a result of inspection.
The video includes specific examples relating to children and young people.
The Health and Social Care Standards
Under the Health and Social Care Standards, everyone is entitled to high-quality care and support tailored towards their needs and choices. That is why the Standards focus on the experience of people using services and supporting their outcomes.
The Standards apply to the NHS, as well as services registered with the Care Inspectorate and Healthcare Improvement Scotland. We use the Health and Social Care Standards to make sure services respect and meet people’s rights, needs and choices.
Download your copy of the Standards.
Equality and diversity
We believe that people in Scotland should experience a better quality of life as a result of accessible, excellent services that are designed and delivered to reflect their individual needs and promote their rights.
Our work focuses on people’s rights, choices and individual outcomes, the things that matter most to people. We continue to put equality and diversity at the heart of all we do. That’s why we made equality and diversity a key principle of our equality, diversity and inclusion strategy.
Strategic scrutiny and assurance
Who we are
The Care Inspectorate’s strategic inspection team sits in the Scrutiny and Assurance Directorate. We focus on the scrutiny, assurance and improvement of services provided by local authority social work services and partnerships. We look at services for children and families, adults and older people and people involved with the justice system. We explore how adults’ and children’s rights are promoted and upheld, the extent to which they are enabled to exercise choice and control in how their support is provided, and the outcomes they experience.
Click on the links below to read more:
Our inspections
The strategic inspection team carries out a range of inspections and inspection activities across adult, children’s and justice services. The legal framework for our inspection activity is set out in the Public Services Reform (Scotland) Act 2010, with our duties and powers to carry out joint inspections with other scrutiny bodies explained at section 115 in part 8 of the Act . We focus on the planning and delivery of social work and social care services by local authorities and partnerships and on the outcomes that services achieve for children and adults.
Click on the links below to read more:
- Inspections overview
- Joint inspections of services for children and young people
- Joint inspections of services for adults
- Joint inspections of adult support and protection
- Justice
- Secure care pathway review 2022-23
- Disabled children and young people thematic review 2023-24
- Care experienced young people thematic review
Joint inspections of services for children and young people
Our approach
In 2017, Scottish Ministers asked us to work with scrutiny partners to take a more focused look at children and young people in need of care and protection. Our joint inspections therefore take account of their experiences and outcomes by looking at the services provided for them by health visitors, school nurses, teachers, doctors, social workers, police officers and lots of other people who work with them and their families.
Children and young people have told us about the importance of being able to experience sincere human contact and enduring relationships. They want to be able to build trust through consistent relationships with adults and they want to be supported to maintain contact with those people who are most important in their lives. Our approach therefore looks carefully at how well services and systems are organised so that they can experience continuity in their care and develop and sustain lasting relationships.
We believe that staff who are well trained and who feel valued and empowered, are more likely to be able to provide high quality services for children and young people. We therefore explore how well staff are supported to carry out their task.
We know that partners recognise that assessment and planning are critical to ensure the safety of, and improving outcomes for, children and young people. However, we also know that performance in assessment and planning is not as consistently strong across the country as it needs to be and we will look to see if robust quality assurance and high quality reflective supervision are in place.
Our inspections also consider whether legal measures are being used appropriately to achieve security and stability for vulnerable children. Inspections include a focus on the role played by those working in adult services to protect children and young people and support sustained positive change for them and their families.
Strong collaborative leadership is essential within the challenging context of providing high quality public services in an integrated landscape. We consider the effectiveness of collaborative leadership, including leadership of the child protection committee and its relationship with chief officers. We look at how well leaders can demonstrate what difference they are collectively making to the lives of children in need of protection and those for whom they are corporate parents. We also identify any barriers that affect continued improved performance.
We started the current round of joint inspections of services for children in need of care and protection in August 2018 and will continue to review and revise the approach over the course of these inspections. Following the suspension of joint inspections in 2020 due to Covid 19, the current round has resumed with a focus on children at risk of harm.
How we do it
Our inspections last for a number of months. We collect information about the area before we visit it. This helps us to understand what happens there and what is affecting the way that services are being provided.
During the inspection, a team of inspectors from the Care Inspectorate and other scrutiny partners:
- speak with the staff
- speak with children and young people and listen to their views
- speak with parents and carers
- read information about the children and young people.
This gives us the chance to find out if children, young people and their families are getting the help that they need and if services are making a difference to their lives. What individual people tell us during inspection is confidential. Our reports do not include any information about them or their family, or anything that could identify them. However, we do have a duty to pass on information if there are concerns about someone’s safety.
After our inspection, we publish a report on our website about what we found for the area. Our inspection reports set out what works well and what could improve. We expect the community planning partnership to take action on any recommendations we make for improvements.
Getting involved
What you think really matters. If we are inspecting your area, and you have experience of services, you may want to speak to us about the help that you have been getting.
We will offer a range of ways for you to give us feedback. As well as a survey we will arrange one-to-one discussions and group meetings. Our one-to-one discussions can take place in person, or we can contact you by phone or other ways such as Facetime or MS Teams.
If you give us information anonymously, we may not be able to get in contact with you if you raise concerns about your own safety or the safety of anyone else. If you have such concerns, we would encourage you to contact your local authority and ask for their child protection or adult protection service. You can also contact Childline on 0800 1111. If we have any concerns about the safety of individuals, we will share this with protection agencies in the relevant area.
Our inspection team also includes young inspection volunteers. These are young people aged 18 – 26 with experience of care services who help us with our inspections. If you are a young person, you can choose to speak with one of them and you can have someone to support you when you meet them. If you are a young person and want to know more about becoming a young inspection volunteer or how to get involved, click here to find out more.
The Promise
The Care Inspectorate is #Keeping The Promise of the independent care review. We are working across six workstreams internally and externally to influence and support application of the Promise,
Our strategic scrutiny children and young people team is committed to ensuring that our scrutiny and improvement activity is focused on the experiences of children and the impact of services on their lives.
Inspection volunteers with care experience are key members if our local scrutiny teams. We will amplify the voice of the child in what we do, how we do it and how we report on it.
More information
The Guide provides information for community planning partnerships (CPP) about the process for the joint inspection of services for children and young people in need of care and protection. This includes services for children under the age of 18 years, or young people up to 26 years if they have been previously looked after. It should be read in conjunction with the quality framework for children and young people in need of care and protection (QIF) for self-evaluation of services.
Find out more:
- Our joint inspection reports can be found here.
- Joint inspections of services for children and young people in need of care and protection Review of findings from the inspection programme 2018-2020
- Joint inspections of services for children and young people A report on the findings of inspections 2014-16
- The Guide
Inspections overview
- Inspection types
- Inspection teams
- Inspection methodology
- Inspection activities
- Inspection reports
- Quality assurance
- Inspection governance
- Covid-19
Inspection types
Our specific inspection focus and programme at any one time is agreed with the Scottish Government and published in the Care Inspectorate’s Scrutiny, Assurance and Improvement Plan. We take a number of different approaches to inspection, designed to meet different scrutiny objectives. These include, but are not limited to:
Inspections and joint Inspections: inspections of individual local authorities or partnerships in relation to key priority areas. Local authorities are identified for inspection based on a combination of risk assessment and rotation of scrutiny activity.
Progress reviews: return visits to a local authority or partnership to check progress following a previous inspection and set of recommendations. Progress reviews are usually (but not always) carried out where the original inspection identified significant areas for improvement.
Thematic reviews/inspections: inspections carried out in a limited number of local authority or partnership areas to explore a particular area of policy or practice that is of national interest. These reviews may or may not evaluate the performance of individual authorities or partnerships but are primarily designed to explore the national picture relating to a given theme and make national recommendations.
Supported self-evaluations: we are always keen to support and encourage self-evaluation. We may at times work proactively with identified local authorities and partnerships to support and validate their self-evaluation of particular areas of activity.
Inquiries: this approach uses an abbreviated approach to explore a particular theme or issue across the country. It is usually designed as a discrete piece of work, carried out over a relatively short time to produce a quick report that provides insight into the key issues relating to the theme.
Inspection teams
Our inspection teams have an inspection lead with responsibility for effectively delivering and concluding the individual inspection. The lead is supported by a deputy lead and a team of inspectors drawn from the Care Inspectorate and relevant partner scrutiny bodies. Our inspections may be supported by associate assessors and people with lived experience (inspection volunteers). The administration and organisation of inspection activities is managed by a team of strategic support officers.
The size of an inspection team will be determined by the scope, methodology and planned length of the inspection. Sometimes, additional resources may be allocated for specific parts of the inspection. However, most inspections will have a core team of between six and 10 members.
How resources are deployed across the different activities of the inspection, and the timing of activities, is captured on a plan that we call the inspection footprint.
Inspection methodology
For each set of inspections, we develop a quality framework (QIF). The quality framework outlines what we expect the quality of the service provided to be. The frameworks we use in our strategic inspection work are based on the EFQM (European Foundation for Quality Management) excellence model, widely used by organisations for managing change and improving performance. The Health and Social Care Standards are woven throughout the quality indicators.
Overall, the QIF provides a model to support inspection. We examine:
- performance and the outcomes that services achieve for the children and adults who use them
- the processes that support service delivery
- the vision, leadership, management and planning of services.
The quality frameworks are also available to local authorities & partnerships for them to use for self-evaluation purposes.
Inspection activities
The activities carried out by inspection teams to gather information can differ across inspections. However, there are some activities which have been proven to consistently provide good information and are therefore used regularly as part of inspections. These include:
Information and communication
The local authority or partnership can expect to receive full information about the inspection.
Most inspections provide a written guidance document of some sort, explaining the various stages and activities of the inspection, along with timescales.
In most inspections, we ask the local authority or partnership to nominate a local co-ordinator to manage and co-ordinate the various activities for them.
Throughout the course of the inspection, there are pre-planned meetings between key members of the inspection team and the local authority or partnership. These may be called professional or partnership discussions. Their key functions are: for the inspection team to feedback on findings so far; for the local authority or partnership to reflect on those findings; for the parties to discuss arrangements and plans for the next phase of the inspection.
Self-evaluation
It is a priority for the Care Inspectorate to support local authorities and partnerships to evaluate their own progress. Most of our inspections ask the local authority or partnership to provide a position statement and supporting evidence at the beginning of the inspection to help inform the inspection team’s understanding and formulate lines of enquiry.
Talking to children and adults who use services
Understanding the experience of people who use social work and social care services is fundamental to inspection, and we use a range of methods to gather the views of both people and unpaid carers. These are likely to include surveys, interviews, events, focus groups, and a range of activities developed to support specific inspections.
Reviewing records
Reading the records of children and adults who use services (also known as file reading) is a rich source of evidence for the inspection teams and is a part of many inspections. It provides understanding of how processes work and gives a picture of how staff interact with people using services.
Support networks
As well as reading records, many inspections include further examination of the care and support journeys experienced by children and adults by meeting with the staff and other significant people who have been part of that journey. This means that inspectors are able to further explore questions that have arisen from reading case records.
Staff surveys
Many inspections include surveys issued to staff. The inspection team often requests the help of the local authority or partnership in distributing the survey and encouraging staff to respond. The arrangements for issuing the survey, and which staff should receive it, will be discussed with the inspection co-ordinator by the inspection lead and strategic support officer.
Interviews and focus groups with key stakeholders
Most inspections involve focus groups or interviews with key stakeholders, including staff, managers, senior leaders, representatives of other statutory and third sector organisations. Often this takes place towards the end of an inspection as it gives the inspection team a good opportunity to discuss themes and issues that have emerged during other inspection activities.
Inspection reports
Inspection teams use regular team meetings to identify and explore themes that emerge from inspection activities. We make sure that potential findings are triangulated and corroborated through a range of activities before accepting them.
Inspection reports for each strand of inspection activity are tailored to the requirements of that inspection, so there are differences between the reports produced by each strategic inspection team. There will also be differences in the reports produced by each team when they are working on different inspection themes.
However, in general, strategic inspection reports can be expected to contain:
- a summary of key findings and/or strengths and areas for improvement
- an analysis of the inspection findings based on the relevant quality framework
- some form of evaluation of the local authority or partnership’s performance – which may or may not have grades attached
- recommendations for action and/or improvement.
Quality Assurance
We aim to achieve a high quality for all our work and want it to have maximum value for all our stakeholders and help to improve the experience of people who use services. To help us achieve this, each inspection programme has a range of quality assurance arrangements:
Each programme has arrangements for review of the inspection approach and methodology which take account of the learning from each inspection while balancing the need for consistency. A key source of learning is from post inspection questionnaires and feedback from inspection leads and team members. All strategic scrutiny teams are represented on a forum to discuss potential improvements to inspection methodology from experiences across the different workstreams and promote consistency wherever possible. When reading the records of people who use services during inspection, a proportion of the sample is double read to ensure consistency of evaluations and we provide training for all record readers.
At the reporting stage of our inspections, inspection leads present their inspection team’s findings and draft report to a ‘quality and consistency’ panel with representation from each partner scrutiny body for discussion and comment. Reports are then issued to the area inspected for an accuracy check before final editing and publication.
Information governance
Our approach to processing personal data is set out in full in our organisational privacy notice.
Covid-19
The Covid-19 pandemic has had a huge impact on social work and social care services across the country. Because of this, most of our strategic inspection work was paused between March 2020 and spring 2021. Since then, strategic inspections have recommenced with some adjustments to reflect the ongoing risks posed by covid-19 and the pressure on local authority and partnership services.
We continue to be responsive to the trends of the pandemic as we plan for and deliver inspection activities. We have also incorporated learning from the pandemic period in relation to our use of technology, and expect to be using a blend of onsite and distance approaches to carry out inspections moving forward.
About us
How we are organised
We work in four teams: adults, children, justice and protection.
Each team is led by a service manager and we report through two chief inspectors to the Executive Director of Scrutiny and Assurance.
We are supported by a team of strategic support officers who provide support and co-ordination to all our scrutiny activities.
What we do
These are the core functions of the strategic inspection team.
- Carrying out strategic inspection work.
- Quality assurance functions – monitoring the completion and quality of:
- Learning reviews (significant case reviews) in relation to children and adults.
- Serious incident reviews (SIRs) in relation to people on community payback orders, drug treatment and testing orders and people supervised on release from prison.
- Investigations into the deaths of looked after children.
3. Providing support to local authorities and partnerships through our link inspector role.
Who we work with
We know that outcomes for children and adults are affected by many factors.
Different services and organisations are involved in providing care and support to vulnerable children and adults and in most cases, social work services are planned and delivered in collaboration with partners.
We also understand that children and adults are all different, with a wide range of life circumstances and experiences.
For this reason, we do not carry out our scrutiny work in isolation but in partnership with children, adults and other organisations. This helps us to be confident that we are taking all relevant factors into account in our scrutiny work.
Inspection volunteers and people with lived experience
Wherever possible, we involve people with lived experience of using services, or of caring for someone who does, in our scrutiny work. We know that this keeps us grounded and often makes it easier for children and adults to share their experiences with us.
The Care Inspectorate has an involvement team that recruits and supports volunteers to work on inspections across our organisation, including strategic inspections. There is a specific team to support young people with experience of care services, between the ages of 18 and 26.
If you have lived experience of social work and social care services, or care for someone who does, and would like to know more about becoming involved in strategic inspections, please email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Associate assessors
Associate assessors are professionals from statutory and third sector organisations who work at a strategic level and have significant practice or management experience in services for children, adults or justice. They work as part of an inspection team for one inspection.
We believe that including associate assessors brings current practice perspectives to our strategic inspections. They can help ensure we are partnership-orientated and contribute to our understanding of the contemporary picture of service planning and delivery. At the same time, this involvement provides an ideal opportunity to help build capacity for joint self-evaluation and improvement in local partnerships.
Please check our frequently asked questions for more information.
We are not currently recruiting associate assessors. However, if you are interested in becoming an associate assessor, please check our website which we will update when we are next recruiting.
Our scrutiny partners
Many of the functions of planning, delivering and monitoring services for children and young people and adults and older people are carried out by more than one agency or organisation. For example, through community justice partnerships, children’s services partnerships and health and social care partnerships. So, we often collaborate with these other scrutiny bodies.
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Education Scotland
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Healthcare Improvement Scotland
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Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland
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Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons for Scotland
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Inspectorate of Prosecution in Scotland
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Audit Scotland
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Mental Welfare Commission
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Scottish Housing Regulator
Temporary changes to variations during Covid-19
Variation changes for care homes and care at home extended to April 2023
Social care continues to face challenges as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, and we continue to support the care sector by adapting what we do, when needed.
To support services to provide support to a wider group of people, there will continue to be no requirement for providers to submit a variation for any care service type where:
- a care home for older people is caring for youngeradults or vice versa
- care at home services care for clients with different careneeds
- there is a change of operationalhours.
This will continue until April 2023.
In these circumstances, there is no requirement to submit a variation form. Instead, you should simply confirm in writing through eForms, using the notification ‘Changes to service delivery’.
Within the notification, you should note what the change is and confirm the service can meet people’s care and welfare needs.
The notification will not trigger an inspection but may trigger contact from the inspector to discuss the changes you have put in place.
For care homes that are supporting people on an interim basis until care at home is available in their area, there is no requirement to notify the Care Inspectorate. We will get this information from the oversight teams of homes being used in local areas.
Counter Fraud, Bribery and Corruption
Counter Fraud, Bribery and Corruption
The Care Inspectorate will:
- take all reasonable steps to prevent fraud and corruption
- ensure we have processes in place to detect fraud and corruption wherever possible
- investigate fraud and corruption where it is detected or reported
- pursue appropriate formal action against those involved in fraudulent or corrupt activities
We will take action where fraud, bribery or corruption has been found to have been committed in accordance with our Formal Action Policy.
What to do if you suspect fraud, bribery or corruption
If you are an employee of the Care Inspectorate please follow our internal procedures for reporting concerns.
If you are not an employee of the Care Inspectorate and you believe that there is fraudulent activity taking place, please report this using the details below or you may wish to report your concerns directly to the police.
You can contact the Care Inspectorate directly:
Jackie Mackenzie
Executive Director Corporate and Customer Services
(Fraud Champion)
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Kenny Dick
Head of Finance and Corporate Governance
(Fraud Liasion Officer)
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Or you can write to Jackie or Kenny at the address below:
Care Inspectorate
Compass House
11 Riverside drive
Dundee
DD1 4NY
You can if you prefer, report your concerns to Audit Scotland.
Further detail on the Care Inspectorate’s counter fraud, bribery and corruption approach can be found here.