Back to all publications

Corporate parenting

Published: 30 April 2021

Corporate Parents are public bodies with legal duties and responsibilities towards care experienced children and young people. Part 9 of the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act, 2014 relates to Corporate Parenting. This applies to every child who is looked after by a local authority, and every young person under the age of 26, who was looked after on their 16th birthday.

Our organisation is one of a list of 24 corporate parents mentioned in the Act. 

​​​​​​​A person is care experienced if they have ever been looked after by a local authority; whether that be in foster care, kinship care, residential care, secure care, or if they have been subject to compulsory measures of supervision at home.  Children and young people who are care experienced have among the poorest outcomes of all children and young people in Scotland. It is our job as corporate parents to try and improve this. 

In 2020, we took the decision to refer to care experienced young people as “our children and young people”. This reflects our values, responsibilities and commitments as corporate parents.

As a corporate parent, we expect to carry out many of the roles any parent should. We have a duty to work with other corporate parents, to best meet our shared responsibilities, promote the wellbeing of our children and young people and keep them safe from harm.

Our Corporate Parenting Report (2017-2020)

Our corporate parenting group has made some significant achievements during the three-year cycle of our plan, which are discussed in our corporate parenting report (2017-2020). We also have a version of our corporate parenting report for children and young people.

Some of our key achievements and improvement include:

  • The development of a complaints text service for children and young people and improved materials to inform children and young people on how they can make a complaint.
  • Personal care planning guidance: our children and young people have personal plans. These give guidance to care services on how to meet their needs, wishes and choices. We met 120 of our children and young people to help them develop these to a high standard.
  • Our young inspection volunteers support a range of our inspection activities. This short video provides a little insight into how they help us  engage with children and young people meaningfully. 
  • We have worked with Who Cares? Scotland and our young inspection volunteers to develop and deliver training for all board members, executive group members and senior managers.

Our Corporate Parenting Plan (2021-2023)

Our Corporate Parenting Plan (2021-2023) has six high level commitments with four areas of focus and a set of detailed actions. We have also developed a version of our Corporate Parenting Plan for Children and Young People.

We pledge to listen to our children and young people, take action and do our best to improve their life chances. These are our six commitments. The action plan in our Corporate Parenting Plan (2021-2023) shows in detail how we will meet them:

  • We will strive to meet the needs of our young people and promote their rights.
  • We will listen to our young people and we will learn how their experiences of the ‘care system’ can best shape our approach to scrutiny, engagement and improvement to help improve the lives of others.
  • We will continue to inspect different services and partnerships and report on how well they work together. We will help services share what works well and learn from what needs to improve, to help make sure that our young people get the right support at the right time.
  • When one of our young people makes a complaint about the care they receive, we will take that complaint seriously and we will respond in a timely, thorough and proportionate way. We will always provide feedback to the person who made the complaint in a way that they will understand.
  • We will improve opportunities for our young people to develop skills, experience, and confidence to achieve their personal, employment and career ambitions.
  • We will work with other corporate parents to make sure that together we can do our best for our young people.

 

Downloads: 4547
View Publication

Covid-19 FAQs

Published: 27 March 2023

As information, guidance and practice about Covid-19 is becoming established and less subject to rapid change, we are no longer maintaining the Covid-19 FAQs or the Covid-19 compendium. For key information, visit our Covid-19 information pages and the following links.

Guidance for Adult social care

Guidance for early learning, school aged childcare and childminder settings

Guidance for Children and Young People (CYP)

Other useful links for all social care settings

Downloads: 4458
View Publication

Customer Support Adviser

Published: 06 September 2017

Role: Customer Support Adviser

Salary: £30,495 - £31,740 

Hours: 35 hours per week

Location: Flexible (Any Care Inspectorate office)

Contract: Temporary until 30 April 2025

About us

We are the national regulator and scrutiny body responsible for providing assurance and protection for people who experience care services, their families, carers and the wider public, as well as supporting delivery partners to improve the quality of care for people in Scotland. Our vision is that people across Scotland experience high quality care that meets their needs, rights and choices.

We are a scrutiny body that supports improvement. We inspect individual care services and we also work with other scrutiny bodies to inspect the social care and social work services people are experiencing in their local areas.

Our desire is to achieve an effective and balanced way of working, that enables us to meet organisational needs and achieve a work-life balance that promotes wellbeing and collaboration opportunities. We are moving towards an expectation that all staff will work collaboratively, within and across teams, in person, for approximately 40% of their working week.

Starting salary

Please bear in mind that new entrants start on the grade minimum for the role. However, we have a generous benefits package which you will find on our website.  

About the role

Due a member of the team going on secondment, we are looking for a Customer Support Adviser to join our team. As a member of the Customer Support team, you will answer incoming calls to the organisation, respond to enquiries and questions, pass callers on to appropriate colleagues when necessary, provide information and undertake general administrative and clerical tasks to support the contact centre team.  You will be flexible to support the overall contact centre approach and strive for excellence in this area of business. 

About you

You will have an excellent understanding of customer service practice with good verbal communication techniques.  You will be able to draw out and gather the correct information and gain confidence from callers, leaving every calling customer with a sense of efficient service and being valued. In addition, you must have good IT skills, be able to work to tight deadlines in an organised manner and be able to work effectively as part of a team.

To apply

You’ll find more information in the job profile and person specification.

If you would like more information or an informal discussion, please contact Angela Kerr, Customer Support Officer, on This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 

If you believe that your expertise and motivation make you suitable for this post, please download and complete an application form (and our online equal opportunities form) and return by email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. by no later than 8am on Monday 16 September 2024.

It is anticipated that interviews will take place no sooner than 4 October 2024.

Downloads: 14559
View Publication

Equality and diversity

Published: 05 December 2014

At the Care Inspectorate, 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.  We are committed to advancing equality of opportunity, eliminating unlawful discrimination and fostering good relations between all protected characteristics.

Our commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion

  • We ensure that the voice of people who experience care is reflected in all our work
  • We promote fairness, equality, diversity and inclusion in all that we do
  • We promote dignity and respect and human rights for all
  • We recognise and value individual differences and the contributions of all
  • We treat people fairly and according to their needs
  • We have a zero-tolerance approach to all forms of discrimination, harassment, bullying or victimisation
  • We have a culture where everyone feels valued and included.

As an organisation, our work, has a focus on people’s rights, choices and individual outcomes, the things that matter most to people. We continue to strive to put equality and diversity at the heart of all we do and that’s why we made equality and diversity a key principle of our Corporate Plan.

Equality, diversity and inclusion statement of intent

At the Care Inspectorate we’re committed to creating a culture that embraces equality, diversity, inclusion and belonging for everyone.

At the Care Inspectorate we value, celebrate and fully embrace to the principles of equality, diversity and inclusion. This requires us all to recognise and respect each others’ differences. Creating an inclusive work environment where we all feel a sense of belonging helps us to do our best work, which results in the best possible outcomes for people who experience care.

We are a values-driven organisation, which means our values inform and guide everything that we do. Our key values of being person-centred, fair and respectful are the most relevant to equality, diversity and inclusion. We expect everyone to follow the principles that are set out in the Health and Social Care Standards as well as any relevant individual codes of practice.

As an employer, we want to increase the diversity of our workforce and would especially welcome applications from disabled people, people from a minority ethnic background, people of all ages, men (as we have a 79% female workforce) people from the lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans community and people with care experience. We want a workforce that reflects the wider Scottish population that we serve.

Photo of the Care Inspecotrate's strategic leadership team.

Signed by our strategic leadership team

The strategic leadership team have signed this statement to demonstrate our commitment to leading inclusively and to show accountability on making equality, diversity and inclusion integral to the way we do things around here.

Meeting our Equality Requirements

Like other public bodies in Scotland, we are required to meet the requirements of the General and Specific Public Sector Equality Duties, as set out by the Equality Act 2010 and the Equality Act 2010 (Specific Duties) (Scotland) Regulations 2012. We report on our equality obligations under the legislation every two years.  

Publications

In our dual role as a scrutiny and improvement body and a public sector employer, we are committed to meeting our legal obligations in all aspects of our work. We are covered by general and specific equality duties arising from the Equality Act (2010) which helps us to integrate equality into our day-to-day work. We report on our equality obligations under the legislation every two years. Here are our publications:

Our policies and strategic workforce plan 

We appreciate and value our workforce and have a range of family friendly and flexible working policies available. We are proud of the range of inclusive work practices we offer colleagues.

We offer equalities training to our workforce and this is built into our induction and includes our managers and leaders. We have a supportive and respectful organisational culture that values equality and diversity and promotes inclusion for our workforce. Our robust people management policies and processes ensure people are treated with dignity and respect in an environment where bullying, harassment, discrimination and victimisation are not tolerated.

Our staff networks 

We make time to listen to our colleagues and give them a voice to share their experiences, listen to their ideas and involve them in our work. We have online communities where we discuss equalities issues, one of the most active is our disabilities group, where group members shares lived experience, good practice and ideas for improvement.

The Corporate Equality Group drives the delivery and progress of the actions from our Equality Outcomes and Mainstreaming Report. The group meets on a quarterly basis and supports the mainstreaming of equality in relation to all the protected characteristics listed under the Equality Act (2010) and is sensitive and responsive to intersectional identities.

The LGBT Charter Champion Group is a sub-group of the Corporate Equality Group. The group also meets on a quarterly basis. You can email the group using this address This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

The Faith Group is a self-organised group which mainly meets in our Edinburgh office. The group focuses on faith issues, faith in the workplace and encourages employees to get together as a community in a social setting. This provides an opportunity for connection and awareness raising. 

Race Equality in Employment

In November 2020 the Scottish Parliament Equality and Human Rights Committee published a report on Race Equality, Employment and Skills.  

The Public Sector Leadership Summit on Race Equality in Employment took place in March 2021. At the summit, the Scottish Parliament’s Equalities and Human Rights Committee highlighted the persistent issues that impact on outcomes for minority ethnic people in Scotland moving into, staying in and progressing in employment. 

To help us with this vital work we are pleased to be working with CEMVO Scotland.

Recommendations 

The Committee have asked all public sector bodies to accept their recommendations and commit to taking them forward. 

  1. The Committee recommends those in public authority leadership positions undertake an assessment of their organisation’s understanding of racism and the structural barriers that may exist within their organisations. Public authorities should integrate their ambitions into their next strategic plan. Their strategic goal should be underpinned by specific outcomes and supported by timely monitoring. Public authorities should be transparent about their targets and their progress in delivering their outcomes.
  2. The Committee recommends public authorities should review their recruitment procedures and practice against the Scottish Government’s toolkit and make the necessary changes.
  3. The Committee recommends that all public authorities subject to the Scottish specific Public Sector Equality Duty should, as a minimum, voluntarily record and publish their ethnicity pay gap and produce an action plan to deliver identified outcomes.

Our commitment to the recommendations 

The Care Inspectorate pledge to implement the key recommendations of the Scottish Parliament's Equalities and Human Rights Committee’s Race Equality, Employment and Skills: Making Progress? Report.

As public sector leaders, we will be bold and transparent. We will embed the recommendations into the strategic objectives of our organisation and the performance objectives of our senior leaders. We will use equality data to provide insights on race equality within the Care Inspectorate and we will take responsibility to assess our organisation’s understanding of institutional racism and proactively challenge and change practices that disadvantage minority ethnic communities. Vitally, we will ensure that minority ethnic communities are involved in shaping this change. We recognise that taking forward the recommendations represents not a final, but a further step, and therefore this work will form part of the continuum of activity and training to tackle racial inequality in employment, which will be aligned with the key principles of the Scottish Government Race Equality Framework 2016-2030. It is important that we make this commitment clear, not just to each other, but to our staff and people who experience care, who will hold us to account. We have therefore published this commitment on our website and social media.

We are pleased to share we are a signatory of the Business in the Community Race at Work Charter. We know that ethnic minorities still face significant disparities in employment and progression, and that is something we need to change. The Charter is composed of five calls to action for leaders and organisations across all sectors.  We signed up to taking practical steps to ensure their workplaces are tackling barriers that ethnic minority people face in recruitment and progression and that their organisations are representative of British society today. 

LGBT Charter Champion Group 

We attend Pride events to increase visibility about LGBT issues and to be more proactive about being inclusive for lesbian, gay, bi and trans people as an organisation. Our commitment to inclusion and diversity, and to the LGBT community, has been recognised externally.

In 2018 we were awarded LGBT Youth Scotland’s Foundation Charter award and we are the first regulator in Scotland to receive this award. In July 2020 we were shortlisted for the Proud Scot Employer Award Large Business.

In 2020 we became a Stonewall Diversity Champion as we wanted to ensure that all LGBT staff are accepted without exception in the workplace. In February 2022 we achieved the Bronze Employer Award in the Stonewall Workplace Equality Index. In June 2022 we were delighted to be awarded the Large Employer Award by Proud Scotland.

banner

Click here to watch a short film ‘Return to the Closet?’ by Luminate Scotland. Older members of the LGBTQI+ community worked with artist Glenda Rome to create a film which illustrated their thoughts and feelings around ageing, being part of the community and what care means to them and the support they’d want from care providers – whether at home or in care homes. Luminate commissioned the film with support from LGBT Health and Wellbeing. Luminate’s Principal Supporters are Creative Scotland, The Baring Foundation and Age Scotland. LGBT Health and Wellbeing’s LGBT Age Community Action Project is funded by Comic Relief.

First Minister’s National Advisory Council on women and girls (NACWG)

We are a circle member of the First Minister’s National Advisory Council on Women and Girls (NACWG). The NACWG was set up to advise the First Minister on what is needed to tackle gender inequality in Scotland and you can read their latest report here. We are now part of a group of supporters and advisors who help generate ideas and solutions that will inform NACWG’s work. 

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, high-quality 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.

Age Scotland 

We are working with Age Scotland to support our commitment to providing an age inclusive environment where staff feel valued, respected and able to reach their full potential at all ages and stages of their career.

Carer Positive Employer 

We are a Carer Positive Established Employer and are committed to supporting our colleagues who are carers. We have recently made changes to our Carers Policy which means we offer up to five days (35 hours) paid time off to support carers.

Fair Work Framework 

The goal of the Fair Work Framework is to ensure that by 2025, people in Scotland will have a world-leading working life where fair work drives success, wellbeing and prosperity for individuals, businesses, organisations and society. 

The Care Inspectorate can support this vision by ensuring the fair work values run through the organisation and embedding fair working practices into everything we do.  We are committed to building a Scotland which champions fair work practices and a diverse workforce.

United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child 

Our work also supports the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). The Convention sets out the civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights that all children are entitled to. As a public body, we are required to publish a report on how our work supports the various articles of the UNCRC. 2020 is the first year we have been asked to report on the UNCRC. Our next report will be published in August 2023.

Contact us

If you would like to contact us, please email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

British Sign Language (BSL) users can contact us directly by using contactSCOTLAND-BSL.

2023: Equalities Mainstreaming Progress Report April 2021- March 2023.

Downloads: 32315
View Publication

Equality impact assessments

Published: 16 December 2015

Equality impact assessments 

As a public body, we are required to assess the equality impact of applying policies, practices, systems and processes. The purpose is to improve outcomes for those who may experience discrimination and disadvantage. This is often referred to as equality impact assessment.

Details of our completed equality impact assessments can be found below.

2024

2023

2022

2021

Pre 2021

All equality impact assessments pre 2021 can be found here. 

 

Downloads: 23537
View Publication

Equality impact assessments

Published: 29 May 2024

2020

2019

2018

2017

2016

2015

Downloads: 1090
View Publication

Executive Personal Assistant

Published: 03 October 2024

Job title: Executive Personal Assistant (PA)

Salary: £30,495 to £31,740  

Hours: 35 hours per week

Location: Dundee

Contract: Permanent

About us  

We are the national regulator and scrutiny body responsible for providing assurance and protection for people who experience care services, their families, carers and the wider public, as well as supporting delivery partners to improve the quality of care for people in Scotland.  Our vision is that people across Scotland experience high quality care that meets their needs, rights and choices.  

We are a scrutiny body that supports improvement.  We inspect individual care services and we also work with other scrutiny bodies to inspect the social care and social work services people are experiencing in their local areas.  

We desire to achieve an effective and balanced way of working, that enables us to meet organisational needs and achieve a work-life balance that promotes wellbeing and collaboration opportunities. Our hybrid working policy gives you the flexibility to mix working from home with attendance at your base office and other work locations, spending no more than 60% of your working time working from home, measured over a 4-week period. 

Starting salary

Please bear in mind that new entrants start on the grade minimum for the role. However, we have a generous benefits package which you will find on our website.  

About the role

We have a permanent vacancy for an Executive Personal Assistant working within the Executive and Committee Support Team. This is a critical role that requires exceptional planning and organisational skills, providing PA support to the Executive Director of Corporate and Customer Services, and to the Chair of the Care Inspectorate Board. It requires a high level of confidentiality and sensitivity due to access to senior leaders’ correspondence and their work.

Working in a busy team, and alongside the Executive PA to the Chief Executive, you will be responsible for checking and prioritising the email correspondence and meeting invitations on behalf of the Chair and Executive Director. Your other key responsibilities will be:

  • to develop and maintain a system for dealing with enquiries on behalf of the Chair and Executive Director, including composing responses to routine correspondence
  • to manage and co-ordinate the Chair’s and Executive Director’s diaries, making appointments and arranging meetings, events, booking venues, organising catering and hospitality for visitors as necessary
  • to make travel and accommodation arrangements for the Executive Director of Corporate and Customer Services and the Chair
  • to prepare agendas and collate, check and distribute paperwork for meetings as required
  • to maintain and ensure that all types of filing systems, registers and records are up to date, including review and updating of the Board’s Register of Interests
  • to attend meetings as required at our head office and at various locations across Scotland, in order to take notes/minutes and prepare action records
  • to support the Executive and Committee Support Manager in administrative tasks related to Board and Committee meetings
  • to establish good working relationships in regular communication with other officers of the Care Inspectorate, external partners and Scottish Government
  • to provide PA support cover in the absence of the Executive PA to the Chief Executive.

To succeed in this role, you will have experience of providing PA support to senior management in a fast-paced changing environment. You will be highly organised and able to plan and manage your time and workstreams efficiently and effectively. You understand that priorities and deadlines can change quickly and you respond flexibly.

You will have a proactive approach and be confident in using your own initiative. Your attention to detail is meticulous and you will have a clear commitment to maintaining high standards and working to the Care Inspectorate values.

You are an enthusiastic team player and are able to build and maintain good working relationships. You will have excellent IT skills with experience of Microsoft applications. You will also have proven experience of diary management, arranging meetings and other events, along with good writing and minute-taking skills.  

Next steps

If you believe that your expertise, skills and motivation make you suitable for this post, please complete our online application by no later than by 08:00 on Monday 28 October 2024.

Interviews will be held at our Head Office in Dundee on Monday 11 November 2024.

You will find more information in the job profile and person specification.

If you require any further information, or for an informal chat, please contact Fiona McKeand – Executive and Committee Support Manager via email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Downloads: 3170
View Publication

Finance Officer

Published: 29 October 2024

Job title: Finance Officer

Salary: £31,938 - £35,328

Hours: 35 hours per week

Location: Flexible (Any Care Inspectorate office)

Contract: Permanent

About us

We are the national regulator and scrutiny body responsible for providing assurance and protection for people who experience care services, their families, carers and the wider public, as well as supporting delivery partners to improve the quality of care for people in Scotland. Our vision is that people across Scotland experience high quality care that meets their needs, rights and choices.

We are a scrutiny body that supports improvement. We inspect individual care services and we also work with other scrutiny bodies to inspect the social care and social work services people are experiencing in their local areas.

Our desire is to achieve an effective and balanced way of working, that enables us to meet organisational needs and achieve a work-life balance that promotes wellbeing and collaboration opportunities. Our hybrid working policy gives you the flexibility to mix working from home with attendance at your base office and other work locations, spending no more than 60% of your working time working from home, measured over a 4-week period.

About the role

We are looking to recruit to the role of Finance Officer within our Accounting and Budgeting Team.

Working in a busy team you will:

  • help prepare the annual Care Inspectorate budget
  • perform monthly reconciliations for suspense, control accounts, bank accounts and monthly fees
  • support budget holders with the management of their budgets
  • help train and develop finance and non-finance staff
  • help produce our statutory annual accounts
  • prepare information for financial or statistical returns

About you

You will have a thorough knowledge of integrated financial accounting systems and an understanding of financial controls and financial environment. You will have good judgement and decision-making skills. In addition, you must have excellent IT skills, be able to work to tight deadlines in an organised manner and be able to work effectively as part of a team.

You should hold a finance related qualification (eg HNC, AAT), although candidates with significant relevant experience may be considered.

The successful candidate will be expected to travel to HQ Dundee and on occasion to other offices in Scotland as required.

Next steps

You’ll find more information in the job profile and person specification.

If you would like more information or an informal chat about the role please contact Dawn Johnston at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

If you believe that your skills, experience and motivation make you a suitable candidate for this post, please complete an online application form by 08:00 on Monday 11 November 2024.

It is anticipated that interviews will be held week commencing 2 December 2024.

 

Downloads: 4191
View Publication

Subcategories

Inspector - Early Learning and Childcare (ELC)

The early learning and childcare expansion… 

Role: Inspector - Early Learning and Childcare (ELC)

Location: Forth Valley, Borders, Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire, Edinburgh & Glasgow

Salary: £31,083 - £39,069 plus excellent benefits

Hours: 140 hours to be worked over a 4-week period

Contract: Permanent or 2-year secondment (would be considered)

Join us and make a difference – for you, for everyone

It’s our job to ensure care for everyone, everywhere in Scotland is as good as it can be. If you are as passionate about high-quality care as we are, and you’re experienced in your field, we’d love to hear from you.

About us

As a national scrutiny body that supports improvement. We inspect care services and partnerships across Scotland, report on the quality of care people experience, and support improvements in services to facilitate improvements in outcomes for people.

We inspect care services individually. We also work with other scrutiny bodies to inspect the social care and social work services people are experiencing in local areas.

We champion high-quality care whenever we encounter it across the thousands of inspections, we carry out each year, and we work closely with all care providers to support them to improve all the time. We collaborate with other organisations too, supporting improvement across public services. Our work plays a big role in reducing health and social inequalities between people and communities.

We are looking for talented people to join us in making a difference - specialists who understand how to put people’s needs, rights and choices at the heart of delivering social services – and how to lead improvement too. Our 600 staff work with services across the public, voluntary and private sectors. We have offices across Scotland and many of our staff work from home.

About you

Whether early or established in your career, you will share our determination that care, social work and justice services should work well for people – every time. You’ll be confident about what good-quality care looks like and how to deliver it. You’ll be good at analysing information and evidence. You will have excellent writing skills for narrative inspection reports that are clear, concise and focused on outcomes. You will be confident in working with a wide range of people and at supporting and advising on improvement.

You’ll currently be working, or have significant experience in, social care, social work, health, children’s services, early learning, child protection, or community learning and development. You will be registered or eligible to register with a professional body like the SSSC, NMC or GTC.

About the role

Our care inspectors work with care services: childminders, nurseries, care homes, care at home, housing support and a host of other specialist services. A specialist in your field, you may have helped lead a service and have a strong track record in delivering quality. You’ll be adept at leading improvement and influencing others. You will work with people experiencing care, and care service providers, managers and staff.

Why join us?

We strive to be a great employer, knowing that competitive salary, leave and pension schemes are only part of that. We pride ourselves on the values we hold, person-centred; fairness; respect; efficiency and integrity - all supported with a culture of care and kindness.

We believe in collective leadership and innovation. You’ll have a lot of autonomy to manage your own work and use the professional skills you’ve honed during your career – but in new ways. Starting on day one, our learning and development support will help you become confident in the craft of scrutiny and in supporting improvement. Because a lot of your role is about sharing effective practice across Scotland, the impact you can have on experiences and outcomes for people is significant. You will draw on management and leadership skills you’ve developed in the past.

We’re proud to be a progressive, supportive employer – we’re happy to talk about flexible working with you and we’re members of the Disability Confident Scheme, aiming to make the most of the talents disabled people can bring to the workplace.

New appointments will normally be placed on the minimum grade for the role; a higher starting salary may be offered in exceptional circumstances only.

ELC expansion

The Scottish Government is committed to expanding the provision of funded Early Learning and Childcare (ELC) from 600 hours to 1140 hours per year by 2020. The expansion of ELC is aimed to support the reduction in the poverty-related attainment gap and improve long term outcomes for children and families.

Due to the ELC expansion programme we are looking for 7 further ELC Inspectors in addition to the “business as usual” Inspector campaign launched recently.

Principles and aims

The priority for the expansion to 1140 hours is to improve children's outcomes and close the poverty-related attainment gap. In addition, the expansion aims to support parents into work, study or training. The Scottish Government's four principles of the ELC expansion are: quality, flexibility, affordability, and accessibility.

The Scottish Government has stated that quality is 'at the heart' of the expansion and that achieving a high-quality ELC experience for children is a key objective.

Use and provision

A 2018 survey found that the main reason why parents use funded ELC is that they consider it beneficial for their child's learning and development. In addition, parents reported using the funded hours to either work, increase the number of hours they work, or look for work.

Funded ELC in Scotland is delivered by a wide range of providers including nurseries, crèches and playgroups, from across the public, private and third sectors. A small number of childminders also deliver funded ELC, but the Scottish Government hopes this number will increase under the expansion to 1140 hours.

Criteria to apply

  • We require you to hold a relevant qualification (minimum SCQF Level 9), register with either the Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC) or any other relevant professional body and undertake PVG checks.
  • You must also be prepared to do a Professional Development Award in Scrutiny and Improvement (Social Services) at SCQF level 10 with appropriate support from the organisation.
  • You will have a minimum of three years recent and demonstrable management experience in a relevant field. You must also be willing to travel with overnight stays as required.

Before you apply

  • Please contact the relevant body directly to resolve any queries you have regarding registration or eligible qualifications for registration (SSSC, NMC and so on) before submitting your application.
  • For an informal chat about the job role, please contact (Who?) You or Kim Connolly, Team Manager on 07766133161
  • For all other queries, please contact Human Resources at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

To apply

  • If you are interested, please see the minimum criteria to apply as an Inspector and the specific guidance and directions to apply. Thereafter, click on the gateway questions link to apply.
  • Your completed application form (campaign number C39 only forms) and equal opportunities form should be returned to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.no later than Monday, 14 October 2019 at 8.00am.
  • We anticipate that selection days will take place in the week commencing Monday, 18 November 2019.