The Guide - introduction
A. Background
The Guide is aimed at community planning partners (CPP) and staff participating in joint inspections. It is complementary to a quality framework for children and young people in need of care and protection (QIF) which supports joint self-evaluation and continuous improvement.
Joint inspections include representatives from Healthcare Improvement Scotland (HIS), Education Scotland (ES) and His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland (HMICS), as well as young inspection volunteers. They take account of the full range of work within a CPP area including services provided by social workers, health visitors, police officers, teachers and the third sector.
Whilst details of the approach to each joint inspection may vary in response to local circumstances, the core elements of the process remain consistent and comparable.
Embedded in our approach is a strong emphasis on listening to, and taking account of, the views of children and young people as well as their parents and carers. The young inspection volunteers, who have relevant experience of services and are trained and supported to be members of joint inspection teams, play a key role in this. These inspections provide public assurance on the quality and effectiveness of services for children and young people and seek to assist partnerships in continuous improvement.
The methodology for joint inspections, as well as our quality framework, is informed by the European Foundation of Quality Management (EFQM) Excellence Model. It looks at:
- key outcomes
- stakeholder’s needs
- delivery of services
- management
- leadership
- capacity for improvement.
Our quality framework outlined in the diagram below contains 22 quality indicators.
B. Joint inspection focus
Since July 2021, the remit of the joint inspections is to consider the effectiveness of services for children and young people at risk of harm. The inspections take account of the difference community planning partnerships are making to the lives of children and young people at risk of harm.
Looking ahead to the implementation of The Promise and the changes that will be required in both practice and scrutiny, the intention of these inspections is to achieve assurance about how children and young people at risk of harm are being kept safe. We are keen to establish how well protection processes to identify, assess and plan for the management of risk are enabling children and young people to experience sustained loving and nurturing relationships, to keep them safe from further harm and promote their wellbeing.
Evidence gathered under the quality indicators of our quality framework for children and young people in need of care and protection (QIF) will enable inspectors to address the four following aims:
- Children and young people are safer because risks have been identified early and responded to effectively.
- Children and young people’s lives improve with high quality planning and support, ensuring they experience sustained loving and nurturing relationships to keep them safe from further harm.
- Children, young people, and families are meaningfully and appropriately involved in decisions about their lives. They influence service planning, delivery and improvement.
- Collaborative strategic leadership, planning and operational management ensure high standards of service delivery.
These will, in turn, form the basis of the published report, which will include key messages, strengths and areas for development for the partnership.
In addition, we will evaluate Indicator 2.1 (Impact on children and young people) using the six point scale.
C. Joint inspection process
Our inspection activity is divided into two phases, followed by a reporting phase.
Key inspection tasks include:
- A review of children’s records
- A staff survey
- Children, young people and parent/kinship carer surveys
- Review of position statement and written evidence
- Focus groups for staff
- Meetings with children, young people and families
- Three meetings with service leaders (partnership discussions)
We then publish a report on our website and produce a video report.
For more information refer to resources and documents section.
Our joint inspections last for around 25 weeks from the point of notification to publication. The actual timespan may be longer if the period of the inspection includes school or public holidays.
There are two phases to the inspection, followed by a reporting phase, outlined in the chart below.
D. Children and young people’s participation and involvement
During the inspection it is important that we hear as much as possible from children and young people using services. Consequently, we have developed our methodology to enable their views to be prominent. We have produced a survey specifically to hear feedback from children and young people, as well as a separate survey for parents and carers.
We want to hear about how children and young people are involved in all the stages of protection process and the impact that this has had. We are interested to see how children and young people are enabled to take part in discussions about service delivery and improvement and how partners respond to their views. We want to know about information sharing and complaints processes and will be seeking assurance that these are accessible and actively promoted. We will be looking at how partners comply with the broader remit of the UNCRC and their response to children’s rights issues.
We will work closely with trained young inspection volunteers who themselves have had experience of services for children and young people. They will lead much of our direct contact with children and young people during the inspection.
We are particularly keen to hear the views of children and young people about:
- Their personal well-being and outcomes. Perceived well-being is increasingly viewed as the most important element of feedback from service users and can be used for: identifying the needs of groups; evaluating the impact of a specific intervention; or obtaining a snapshot of needs and strengths in communities.
- The staff working with them and their families. We know the importance of children and young people being enabled to experience sincere human contact and enduring relationships. We will therefore explore the extent to which they have confidence in the people who support and care for them.
- Their experiences of the processes that they have encountered – assessment, planning, intervention, review. We are interested in the experience that children and young people have of the processes which are designed to recognise and respond to child protection concerns and keep them safe and well.
- How well services have involved them. We are not only interested in the headline care standard “I am involved in all decisions about my care and support”, but also in the ways that services are involving children and young people in reviewing and improving the work that they do. We want to know how services have sought their views and hear how these views have been used to make changes as necessary.
Variations around the skills mix in care homes
Care homes for older people
The Care Inspectorate is aware of the challenges faced by some care providers on the recruitment and retention of nurses in the care sector. Some care providers have approached us about reconfiguring their staffing model, to develop the role of their senior care workers so that they can deploy their nurses more effectively and in some cases reduce reliance on agency nursing in order to promote more stable staff teams.
The Care Inspectorate recognises and strongly supports the role that nurses play in many care homes, particularly in providing clinical leadership and planning care for residents. We are also keen to support innovation in care that reflects changing needs and demands, where this improves outcomes for service users.
Where care homes for older people are proposing to vary the skills mix in a care home, and this would require a change to staffing schedules, we will consider proposals through our registration variations process. We expect such proposals to improve the quality of care for residents. We will ask care homes to provide us with specific information to support the variation request.
If agreed, we may place specific time-limited conditions on the registration of the service. We will expect any such initiative to be evaluated by the care home provider, before consideration is given to confirming these arrangements as permanent. Where a variation is agreed, the next inspection of the care home is likely to look at all quality themes, even if the home has been performing at a high level for some time.
Prior to submitting your variation, the registration team will be able to advise on what actions you should be taking to support your application. This should include engagement with local commissioners, as well as with residents and relatives and the development of a plan to evaluate the impact and effectiveness of your initiative. Please note, cost saving will not be an acceptable reason for application.
National Preventive Mechanism
The Care Inspectorate is a member of the National Preventive Mechanism (NPM), a group of organisations designated to monitor the treatment and conditions of those people who have been deprived of their liberty.
The NPM’s Eighth Annual Report was published on 20 February 2018. It gives an overview of members’ work monitoring detention across the UK from 1 April 2016 to 31 March 2017 and the NPM’s joint, thematic work on transitions and pathways between different detention settings.
The NPM was established pursuant to the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (OPCAT). OPCAT is an international human rights treaty designed to strengthen the protection of people deprived of their liberty, including requiring each state party to set up a national level body (known as a National Preventive Mechanism) that can support efforts to prevent their ill treatment. The aim of an NPM is to prevent torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment from taking place.
Central to OPCAT is the idea that a system of regular, independent visits to places of detention can serve as an important safeguard against abuses, and prevent torture and ill-treatment in places that by their very nature fall outside the public gaze.
Specific requirements of an NPM
To comply with OPCAT, members of the National Preventive Mechanism, such as the Care Inspectorate, must have certain powers. These include the power to:
- inspect all places of detention
- access all information relating to detainees
- interview detainees in private
- choose where to visit and who to speak to
- make recommendations based on human rights norms to relevant authorities
- make proposals and observations on existing or draft legislation.
The Care Inspectorate has these powers in respect of secure care for children. We also work closely with HM Inspectorate of Prisons in Scotland and support some of their inspections.
They recently published Isolation in Detention guidance. The guidance provides a framework that NPM members will apply when examining the issue and making recommendations, and aims to improve consistency of approach. It allows NPM members to identify and promote good and improved practice.
The UK’s National Preventive Mechanism
The UK ratified OPCAT in 2003, expressing its commitment to prevent torture and ill-treatment in places of detention.
The UK’s National Preventive Mechanism was formally designated in 2009 and is now made up of 21 member organisations whose official functions include monitoring and inspecting places of detention.
Across the UK, different detention settings are visited or inspected by different NPM members. The UK NPM is coordinated by HM Inspectorate of Prisons and decision-making is guided by a steering group, which is made up of representatives from NPM members in the four nations.
Each NPM member has a different mandate, powers and geographical remit, and sets its own priorities for detention monitoring as well as contributing to joint NPM priorities.
The Care Inspectorate is actively involved in the UK NPM work, including involvement in three of its four sub-groups:
- Mental Health Network
- Children and Young People’s sub-group
- Scottish sub-group.
Scotland
The Scottish members of NPM are:
- Care Inspectorate
- Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland
- Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons for Scotland
- Independent Custody Visitors Scotland
- Mental Welfare Commission for Scotland
- Scottish Human Rights Commission
The Scottish sub-group coordinates NPM activities in Scotland, provides support to NPM members, raises the profile of the work of the NPM and improves liaison with the Scottish Government. It is chaired by the Scottish member of the Steering Group, currently the Mental Welfare Commission for Scotland.
Why your annual returns are so important
This year’s annual returns have now closed. We would like to thank everyone who submitted their annual return to us by the deadline Sunday, 2 March 2025. The information you have provided will help us plan, inform and carry out our inspections and improvement work.
Why your annual returns are so important
Every year in January and February, we ask care service providers to complete an annual return. It asks for a great deal of information about your service and the people who use it. It is important to know why you are asked for this information, and what we do with it.
First and foremost, the information you provide in the annual return helps us understand your service. This means inspectors are able to plan and prepare for effective inspections that are focused appropriately.
Not only is the annual return important for planning and focusing inspections, but the information you also give provides a national picture, which can help the us and other partner organisations in a number of ways.
Even inactive services must submit an annual return.
If a service was registered on or after 1 October 2024, it should try to complete an annual return this year. Although it is not mandatory for these services, any information supplied will be used by the Care Inspectorate and Scottish Government. The information entered this year will automatically appear in the December 2025 annual return and only information that has changed will need to be entered.
Benchmarks and comparisons for inspectors
Inspectors can compare a service they are looking at with national averages to identify potential issues. For example, if the inspector is preparing to inspect a service with higher staff turnover than average, when they inspect, the inspector might look at the impact this could have had on the quality of care and outcomes for people using that service.
Publishing statistics
We also publish statistical reports of some of the annual returns data. We also use the annual return data to inform many of our other publications such as:
National policy makers (the Scottish Government) can use these summaries and publications to shape and evaluate national policies and providers can see how their service compares with other services.
Supporting improvement
The intelligence we gather through annual returns 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.
Reducing duplication and sharing information
We also share information with other public bodies to reduce duplication and the costs of data collection for both the taxpayer and the people providing data. For example, anonymised staffing information is shared with the Scottish Social Services Council, so they can develop intelligence about the workforce without having to collect additional data from care services.
If you need help accessing the annual return, you can call our contact centre on 0345 600 9527 or read our frequently asked questions (to follow).
About us
Who are we
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 assurance and improvement. 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.
- Providing support to local authorities and partnerships through our link inspector role.
- 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.
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 a 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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His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland
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His 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
How the framework links to How good is our early learning and childcare
The following table shows how our quality framework for children, childminding and school-aged childcare link to Education Scotland’s ‘How good is our early learning and childcare’ quality indicators.
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Care Inspectorate quality framework for daycare of children, childminding and school aged childcare |
Links to How Good Is Our Early Learning & Childcare |
|
Quality indicator 1.1 Nurturing Care and Support |
2.4 Personalised support 2.6 Transitions 2.7 Partnerships 3.1 Ensuring wellbeing, equality and inclusion |
|
Quality indicator 1.2 Children are safe and protected |
2.1 Safeguarding and child protection |
|
Quality indicator 1.3 Play and learning |
2.2 Curriculum 2.3 Learning, teaching and assessment 2.6 Transitions 3.2 Securing children’s progress 3.3 Developing creativity and skills for life and learning |
|
Quality indicator 1.4 Family engagement |
2.5 Family learning 2.6 Transitions 2.7 Partnerships 3.1 Ensuring wellbeing, equality and inclusion |
|
Quality indicator 1.5 Effective transitions |
2.5 Family learning 2.6 Transitions 2.7 Partnerships 3.1 Ensuring wellbeing, equality and inclusion |
|
Quality indicator 2.1 Quality of the setting for care, play and learning |
1.5 Management of resources to promote equity. |
|
Quality indicator 2.2: Children experience high quality facilities |
1.1 Self-evaluation for self-improvement 1.4 Leadership of management and practitioners 1.5 Management of resources to promote equity |
|
Quality indicator 3.1 Quality assurance and improvement are led well |
1.1 Self-evaluation for self-improvement 1.3 Leadership of change 1.5 Management of resources to promote equity |
|
Quality indicator 3.2 Leadership of play and learning |
1.2 Leadership of learning 1.3 Leadership of change 1.4 Leadership and management of practitioners |
|
Quality indicator 3.3 Leadership and management of staff and resources |
1.5 Management of resources to promote equity |
|
Quality indicator 4.1 Staff skills, knowledge, and values |
1.3 Leadership of change 1.4 Leadership and management of practitioners |
|
Quality indicator 4.2 Staff recruitment |
1.3 Leadership of change 1.4 Leadership and management of practitioners |
|
Quality indicator 4.3 Staff deployment |
1.3 Leadership of change 1.4 Leadership and management of practitioners |
Medicine waste in care homes
The Care Inspectorate worked with colleagues in NHS Tayside, Scottish Care, Community Pharmacy Tayside and other Pharmacy organisations to reduce inappropriate medicine waste in care homes. Co-production between these organisations resulted in all agreeing a new protocol to ensure only appropriate waste was collected. The project has been successful and we have received positive qualitative feedback from care home managers and pharmacy staff.
Letter sent to care homes in September 2016
Watch our clip below to find out more.
If you need any help or advice in relation to this project please feel free to contact either your community pharmacist or any one of the following individuals:
Early learning and childcare profiles
Early learning and childcare profiles, by local authority
We have created early learning and childcare local profiles to assist local authority planning for the expansion of early learning and childcare in Scotland.
These profiles are a valuable source of information about daycare of children services in local authority areas. They include information about: number of services and capacity; funded places; trends in children registered; registered children by age; service quality; sessions and opening times; SIMD and urban/rural classification; staffing and vacancies; population estimates and projections; and an early learning and childcare service list of the area.
The profiles focus on those services that provide early learning and childcare (children and family centres, nurseries and playgroups) while our early learning and childcare statistics publication also provides information about out of school care, holiday playschemes and creches.
We welcome any feedback, queries and ideas for improvement for these profiles; please email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Early Learning and Childcare Profiles, as at 31 December 2016
Early Learning and Childcare Profiles, as at 31 December 2017
Early Learning and Childcare Profiles, as at 31 December 2018