The Care Inspectorate have commenced an innovative and holistic approach to inspections of services for children across Community Planning Partnership areas. Four pilot “Joint Inspections” have been carried out, with others underway. The Expo coincides with the publication of a report independently evaluating the pilot inspections. This will be of significant interest to all children’s services providers and wider CPP partners and this session will offer an opportunity to discuss this development. Contributed by: Care Inspectorate.

1. Making sure everyone is
working together for
children
Sarah Blackmore
Depute Director (Children’s Services & Criminal Justice)

2. Who we are
• We are Scotland’s independent scrutiny
and improvement body responsible for:
– regulation and inspection of care and support
services (including criminal justice services)
– scrutiny of social work services
– joint inspections, with partners, of services for
adults and children.

3. Who we are
• We regulate and inspect care services for
people of all ages
• We help services improve the quality of care
• We were established under the Public Services
Reform (Scotland) Act 2010 as “SCSWIS”
• We operate independently from the Scottish
Government but are accountable to it and
publicly funded.

4. Aberdeen office
Dundee office and headquarters
Musselburgh office
Hamilton office
Paisley office
… and 11 local offices throughout
Scotland.
Where we are

5. • Annette Bruton: Chief Executive
• Karen Anderson: Depute Chief
Executive / Director of Strategic
Development
• Gordon Weir: Director of Corporate
Services
• Dr Robert Peat: Director of Inspection
Senior staff

6. • The Care Inspectorate believes 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.
Vision

7. • We inspect and grade around 14,000
regulated care services used by people of all
ages
• We provide scrutiny of social work services
in Scotland’s 32 local authorities
• With partner bodies, we carry out joint
inspections of children’s and adult services
on a strategic basis
What we do

8. What we inspect

9. • Inspectors moved from working in generic
teams to working in teams of specialist
knowledge
• 142 inspectors & team managers for children’s
services, across teams in children, young
people, and justice
• Based across Scotland but work in national
teams
• This enhances our work in improvement
Inspectors

10. • Provide assurance and protection for
people who use services, their families and
carers and the wider public
• Play a key part in improving
services for adults and
children across Scotland
• Act as a catalyst for
change and innovation
• Promote good practice
It’s our job to…

11. Person-Centred: we will put people at the
heart of everything we do
Fairness: we will act fairly, be transparent and
treat people equally
Respect: we will be respectful in all that we do
Integrity: we will be impartial and act to
improve care for the people of Scotland
Efficiency: we will provide the best possible
quality and public value from our work
Our values

12. The current Corporate Plan sets three outcomes - key
ways of knowing if the Care Inspectorate is successful:
The quality of services in Scotland is improving
People understand the quality of service they should
expect and have a good experience of services centred on
their needs, rights and risks
The Care Inspectorate performs effectively and efficiently
as an independent, scrutiny and improvement body and
works well in partnership with other bodies
New plan due from April 2014.
Corporate Plan

13. Resources
• 600 staff (300 are front-line inspectors)
• Annual budget of around £34 million
• Current budget is 8.6% lower than the combined
budgets of predecessor bodies
• Build in efficiency savings targets in all that we
do
• Savings fund the cost of additional inspection
and improvement work, including the new
statutory requirement to inspect every care
home and care-at-home service annually

14. • Our inspection plan is agreed by Scottish
Ministers
• Most inspections are unannounced or short-
notice
• More focus on poorer and high risk services
• Inspectors use a variety of methods to inspect
• We follow up inspections with
recommendations, requirements and
enforcement action if necessary
How we inspect

15. Inspecting
• We visit every service we inspect and talk to
users, carers and families
• We talk to staff and managers privately & in
groups
• Examine what quality of care is being provided
• Look at the activities happening on the day
• Examine records and files
• Ensure people have choices that reflect their
needs and promote their rights

16. Inspecting
• Visits can last a day or multiple days
• For regulated care services, we usually use
one inspector, but not always
• We take account of:
– self assessment
– National Care Standards
– recommendations we made previously
– any complaints against the service
– any enforcement actions we have

17. Developed by Scottish Ministers, they:
• apply to care services
• are written from the perspective of
the person using the service
• guide service providers on how
to provide good quality care
• inform people who use care
services about what to expect.
Consultation on new NCS is
about to be launched
National Care Standards

18. Experts
• Inspectors can draw advice from a team
of in-house experts:
• Team of consultants:
– child & adolescent mental health, infection
• Team of professional advisers in:
– pharmacy, palliative care, mental health,
nutrition, infection prevention & control,
medical practice

19. Involvement
• We want to hear as many views from users of
care services as possible
• We involve inspection volunteers in some
inspections: people with experience of care
• Mainly in adult services, but we have a
commitment to increase the involvement
young people across all our work
• For joint inspections of children’s services, we
are involving young inspectors as full
members of the inspection teams

20. Grading
• All regulated care
services are
graded:
Grade 6 – Excellent
Grade 5 – Very good
Grade 4 – Good
Grade 3 – Adequate
Grade 2 – Weak
Grade 1 – Unsatisfactory
• 4 quality themes
are assessed:
– quality of care and
support
– quality of environment
– quality of staffing
– quality of management
& leadership
• All reports are published online

21. Care services
• Summary of grades at 31 January 2014
Theme 1: Quality of Care and Support
Grade 6 – Excellent 8.4%
Grade 5 – Very good 53.8%
Grade 4 – Good 30.3%
Grade 3 – Adequate 5.9%
Grade 2 – Weak 1.3%
Grade 1 – Unsatisfactory 0.3%

22. Complaints
• Our national complaints team investigate
complaints about care services
• Can be made anonymously to our
National Enquiry Line
• In 2012/3, we received 3,172 complaints
• The 3 most frequent subjects were:
– health & welfare
– communication with users/relatives
– staffing levels

23. Ministers asked the Care Inspectorate to lead
joint inspections of services for children and
young people, to:
• improve outcomes for all children and young people
• provide assurance about the quality of services for
children and young people
• help to improve services and build capacity

24. Our overarching approach:
• is in line with the principles of Getting it right for
every child
• is child-centred and based around the experience of
the child’s journey
• supports improved self-evaluation
• where possible, joins up scrutiny and makes use of
evidence from other inspection
• builds upon the successful model of the joint
inspections of services to protect children
This requires an inspection footprint of 6 months, but only
13 days on site.

25. Key features
• a framework of quality indicators:
How well are the lives of children and young people? A guide to
evaluating services using quality indicators
• a focus on how well services are working together to
improve the lives of
all children
vulnerable children and young people
continued focus on children in need of protection

26. Scope of the inspection
• the child’s journey from pre-birth – 18 years and
beyond for care leavers
• applicable to vulnerable groups of children and young
people and families
• collective leadership of the community planning
partnership – shared responsibility, integration and
transformational change

27. Who is involved?
Care Inspectorate
– Strategic Inspectors
– Young Inspectors
– Team Manager
– Associate Assessors
HMICS
Education Scotland
Healthcare Improvement Scotland
Admin Officer/Head of Inspection

28. Where are we now?
• 4 pilot inspections completed and published
(City of Edinburgh, Orkney, Argyll and Bute, North Ayrshire)
• 7 inspections in 2013/14
East Dunbartonshire and Midlothian – published
Dumfries and Galloway, Clackmannanshire, Stirling, East Lothian
and Highland underway
• 6 inspections in 2014/15
East Renfrewshire and South Lanarkshire already announced

29. Associate Assessor
We are establishing a pool of associate assessors to
join inspection teams. They are practitioners and
managers across a range of partners who will:
•bring the perspective of current practice and challenges
of partnership/integrated working
•increase transparency and credibility
•build capacity for joint self-evaluation and improvement

30. Young inspectors
Specially trained young people with experience of
care who join inspection teams and play a full role.
They:
•interview senior managers and chief executives
•explore corporate parenting and the involvement of
children and young people in policy and service
development
•examine strategic plans from a young person’s
perspective
•speak to young people

31. Young inspectors video