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.

  1. Carrying out strategic inspection work.
  2. 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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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.  


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Safe staffing improvement programme

The Health and Care (Staffing) (Scotland) Act 2019 (not yet enacted) was passed in 2019. The Care Inspectorate has been commissioned by the Scottish Government to lead on a national quality improvement programme to support care services in preparation for the enactment of the legislation.

Our vision

Working in collaboration with people who experience care, relatives, representation groups and other key stakeholders, our vision of the programme is to: 

‘Ensure that in care services in Scotland there are the right people, in the right place, with the right skills at the right time working to ensure people experience the best health and care outcomes.’ 

We regularly publish programme updates and resources on The Hub. 

To find out more information about the programme or you would like to get involved email us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.


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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.

Our position statement on Modern Slavery

What is Modern Slavery?

We recognise that workers recruited from overseas are a hugely valuable and important part of Scotland’s social care workforce.

Modern slavery is complex; but simply put, it describes a situation where someone is made to do something, and another person gains from this. Modern slavery is about being exploited and completely controlled by someone else, without being able to leave or belief that you cannot leave through threats by person in control. It includes
human trafficking, slavery, servitude and forced compulsory labour.

Modern slavery is the deception or coercion of a person for the purpose of exploitation.

Modern slavery can be present in any social care setting and victims could be either staff working in a service or people who are using a service.

Our strategic aim

We will constructively work with partners to end modern day slavery in Scotland’s social care system.

Our regulatory response

Our purpose is to ensure registered care services provide people with safe, highquality care and to encourage services to improve.

We will be alert to potential cases of modern slavery and to listen sensitively and compassionately when people raise issues with us. We will respond in the following ways:

  • If we receive or discover information that may indicate modern slavery, we will identify and record this threat. We will do this even if the person contacting us does not refer to it as modern slavery.
  • We will refer identified and potential victims through our established safeguarding referral routes.
  • We will monitor registration applications to check for warning si-gns of potential exploitation of skilled workers from overseas.
  • We will seek out early indication that sponsor licenses are being exploited by working closely with Home Office and other partners.
  • We will not hesitate to take action including proportionate regulatory and enforcement action where modern slavery and unethical recruitment practises pose a potential risk of harm.
  • We will work with other organisations to prevent, disrupt and reduce the likelihood of modern slavery in social care.
  • We will monitor the modern slavery situation by submitting reports and updates to SMG and ET quarterly or yearly.
  • To support our work, we will develop staff awareness/training and procedures.

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Bairns’ Hoose (Barnahus)

Bairns’ Hoose, based on an Icelandic model ‘Barnahus’, will bring together services in a ‘four rooms’ approach with child protection, health, justice and recovery services all made available in one setting.  Bairns’ Hoose aims to ensure that every child victim or witness has consistent and holistic support, access to specialist services and receives ongoing therapeutic care from services coordinated under one roof. 

The overall vision of a Bairns’ Hoose (Barnahus) in Scotland is that:

All children in Scotland who have been victims or witnesses to abuse or violence, as well as children under the age of criminal responsibility whose behaviour has caused significant harm or abuse, will have access to trauma informed recovery, support and justice.

The key values through which this vision will be achieved are that:

  • we are child centered, trauma informed and respect the rights and wellbeing of the child at all times
  • we provide consistent and holistic support, which enables children to have their voices heard, access specialist services and recover from their experiences
  • we aim to prevent children being re-traumatised and to improve the experience of the criminal justice process for children and families, and
  • we demonstrate connectedness and national leadership to uphold children’s rights to protection, support, participation and recovery.

In 2019, the Scottish Government commissioned Healthcare Improvement Scotland and the Care Inspectorate to jointly develop standards which will provide a blueprint for a Scottish Barnahus (Bairns’ Hoose).  Also in 2019, a Standards Development Group with representatives from across social work, police, health, justice and children’s voluntary organisations began developing the standards. In March 2020 Healthcare Improvement Scotland and the Care Inspectorate paused the development of the standards in order to reduce undue strain across the system and prioritise resources to support the national response to Covid-19. A refreshed Standards Development Group recommenced work on the Bairns’ Hoose standards in January 2022. 

The final standards are now available to download. We have also developed a version of the standards for children and young people. The standards will help to support a consistent national implementation of the Bairns’ Hoose model.

Update on Barnahus July 2023

For further information regarding the project, see other reports published to date:


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