Archived updates
Archived Updates
- Covid-19 FAQ's
- Covid-19 notifications
- Inspection during Covid-19
- Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)
- Near Me video calls
- Registrations
- Operating your care service
- Information for people and their carers
You can find older updates by clicking the relevant year below:
Continuing care for young people
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.
We have updated our rules for adult placement services, with changes to fees and combined service status. These changes support young people to remain in their family placement and support providers.
Where a fostering service and an adult placement service operate as one service solely in order to support young people who have been cared for in the family on a fostering basis and who now wish to remain with the same family on a continuing care basis, this will be treated as one service, for the purposes of fees. The level for application and continuation fee will be set at the fostering agency service level. (‘Solely in order to support young people who have been cared for in the family on a fostering basis’ means that the adult placement service does not provide throughcare or aftercare.)
This supports the legislation which states that the accommodation and service should be the same for the young person as they move from being a looked after child to continuing care. On this basis, we are able to treat the services as one. This will mean one fee and one inspection, with a single report published under both categories on our website.
The updated guidance for care services, which includes the policy statement and guidance for staff is available here.
Registration requirements for residential services and care workers for children and young people as they move into adulthood
Joint statement by the Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC) and the Care Inspectorate.
We’ve had some questions about the registration requirements for workers and services providing continuing care for young people over the age of 16 and under 26 years following the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act, Part 11 Continuing Care. We have considered the issue and decided not to change anything.
The Continuing Care legislation supports continuing care for young people beyond the age of 16 and into young adulthood and this may mean for some residential childcare services they are not only caring for children and young people but also for young adults.
The introduction of Continuing Care has raised questions about how staff and services should be registered with the SSSC and the Care Inspectorate, given that young people will move from childhood to adulthood, while being supported by the same workers and services.
The agreed approach is that there will be no registration changes to either the services registered by the Care Inspectorate or the individual workers registered with SSSC in respect of residential services. So, care homes for children and young people and school care accommodation services will continue to be registered with the Care Inspectorate as residential childcare services. Those working in these settings will also continue to be registered on the parts of the SSSC Register for childcare and residential school care so there will not be any changes to their registration.
Both the SSSC and the Care Inspectorate will expect services and staff providing care and support to young people under Continuing Care to have the skills and knowledge and the services to develop policies to reflect the specific needs of the group for which they are providing care and support.
This approach ensures that the appropriate degree of robust regulation is maintained without placing any extra requirement on workers or services, and supports the development of innovative services for young people to get the best support into their adult life. Legislative arrangements for the registration of foster care agencies and adult placement agencies are separate to this and the Care Inspectorate will issue guidance shortly on this point.
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
- Review of social work governance and assurance in Scotland
- Public protection
Notification on controlled drugs
Notification on controlled drugs
Providers should notify the Care Inspectorate to any adverse events and concerns involving schedule 2, 3, 4, and 5 controlled drugs used in care settings, when they occur, and while the service user is receiving care in the care service.
Please note, it is a legal requirement for care services to notify the Care Inspectorate of the matters listed in this document. Where the requirement is limited to a specific type of care service, this is detailed in the guidance.
Care services and local authorities must use our eForms system to make these notifications.
Disabled children and young people: Thematic review 2023-24
On this page you will find information about our national report Disabled children and young people’s experiences of social work services: a thematic review.
Formats
- Braille is available on request
If you require any other formats please email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Review
Our aim in carrying out this review was to learn and understand more about disabled children and young people’s views and experiences of the support they received from social work services. We focused on social work’s contribution to getting it right for every disabled child and considered how well disabled children’s rights were being respected and upheld.
This report presents the key messages of our review of how well social work services contribute to ensuring disabled children have their rights respected and receive early care and support. It includes reflections and actions for social work services and Scottish Government to consider in order to improve outcomes for disabled children and young people.
Key messages
Our review found that:
- Respectful relationships were key to building a culture of listening to and respecting children and young people’s views. This ensured they were engaged in decisions about their care and support.
- Too many disabled children and young people’s views, feelings and wishes were not being heard.
- When children and young people received the right support at the right time from social work services, this helped them to grow and develop
- Increasing complexity of need and high demand for services was outweighing the availability of supports.
- Children and young people were not always provided with meaningful choices about the support they received.
- Parents and carers routinely provide a significant level of care and support. Their wellbeing must be promoted and protected.
- The quality of social work assessments, plans and reviews were variable and were not always properly addressing all the child or young person’s needs.
- The experience of transitioning into life as a young adult continues to be characterised by unpredictability and uncertainty for too many disabled young people.
- Compassionate and dedicated social work staff were helping to improve the lives of children and young people. High workloads and recruitment and retention of staff significantly challenged staff teams.
- The social work role was not always easily understood by families and/or other professionals.
- Reliable data and a shared definition of disability are not available to inform future planning or to support the setting budgets.
Actions required
The responsibility for improvement sits with us all. The actions noted below will require a shared approach across Scottish Government, local authorities, national and local organisations and public bodies, including the Care inspectorate.
The actions required:
- The views of disabled children and their families must be considered as part of service mapping, understanding unmet need and service planning.
- A robust approach to gathering and analysing data on disabled children and young people must be implemented, both in social work services and wider. This must be used effectively to inform service planning and improvement.
- We must take action in response to the views of disabled children and their families to ensure gaps in service provision are addressed.
- The role of social work services in providing care and support to disabled children must be clearly defined and understood across agencies. Clear and accessible information should be available and communicated to children and their families. This should include eligibility criteria.
- Opportunities for effective early intervention should be strengthened.
- Opportunities for play and friendships, along with other areas that are important to children, should be maximised. This will need a collective and holistic response.
- Adequate resourcing must be made available to enable services to develop and improve.
You can read the full report here.
Policy position on the use of restrictive practices
Introduction
Everyone in health and social care has a role to play in upholding people’s rights. This includes the right to person centred and trauma informed care and support. Restrictive practice which includes restraint, seclusion, segregation and other less direct practices may form part of a person’s plan of care or support. This includes all people from infants and children, through to young people, adults, and older people. This policy states our position on the use of restrictive practice in all services, to ensure this being the ‘last resort’ and where the risks and benefits to the person have been considered within a legal, ethical and practical framework. This statement should be read in conjunction with the guidance for specific services.
Definition
Restrictive practice is defined as making someone do something they do not want to do or stopping them from doing something they do want to do, by restricting or restraining them, or depriving them of their liberty.1
Restrictive practices relate to different types of restraint. This can be physical, mechanical, chemical, cultural, environmental or psychological restraint, surveillance or blanket rules.
Policy position statement
The Care Inspectorate is committed to upholding and promoting human rights and the rights of the child. These rights may only be restricted as a last resort, including in the use of restraint. The use of restrictive practices, including physical restraint, must be considered within a context of the conflict in the promotion of rights, independence and choice for children and adults, versus promoting and maintaining our duty of care.2 In law3, the use of force in any form is required to be justifiable, reasonable and proportionate. Practitioners may be required to take protective action to keep children and adults safe from harm that may affect rights, including choice, dignity and freedom. However, this must be delivered within a context of positive risk taking and compassionate care.
Legislation and standards
Whilst there is no specific piece of legislation that focusses on restraint, the Care Inspectorate is guided by the following legislation and standards.
The Social Care and Social Work Improvement Scotland (Requirements for Care Services) Regulations 2011, which specifies:
- under welfare of users that “A provider must ensure that no service user is subject to restraint, unless it is the only practicable means of securing the welfare and safety of that or any other service user and there are exceptional circumstances” (4(1)(c)).
- under fitness of premises that “Accommodation must not be provided and used for the purpose of restricting the liberty of children in any residential premises where care services are provided unless such provision and use have been approved by the Scottish Ministers” (10 (3)).
The Health and Social Care Standards, which set out that:
- “If my independence, control and choice are restricted, this complies with relevant legislation and any restrictions are justified, kept to a minimum and carried out sensitively” (1.3).
- “My care and support meets my needs and is right for me” (1.19).
- “Any treatment or intervention that I experience is safe and effective” (1.24).
- “I experience warmth, kindness and compassion in how I am supported and cared for, including physical comfort when appropriate for me and the person supporting and caring for me” (3.9).
- “I am protected from harm, neglect, abuse, bullying and exploitation by people who have a clear understanding of their responsibilities” (3.20).
- “I experience care and support free from isolation because the location and type of premises enable me to be an active member of the local community if this is appropriate” (5.9).
- “If I experience 24 hour care, I am connected, including access to a telephone, radio, TV and the internet” (5.10).
- “I can independently access the parts of the premises I use and the environment has been designed to promote this” (5.11).
- “If I live in a care home, I can control the lighting, ventilation, heating and security of my bedroom” (5.12).
- CQC 2023
- Civil law
- Common law
Our support to local partnerships
Our support to local partnerships
Each strategic inspector acts as link inspector to one or more local authority areas across the country. The key purpose of the link inspector role is to fulfil the Care Inspectorate’s ‘general duty of furthering improvement in the quality of social services’ in relation to local authority social work services. This duty is set out at section 44(1)(b) of the Public Services Reform (Scotland) Act 2010.
The link inspector role has a degree of complexity because few social work services are now provided on a standalone basis. Most are now planned, delivered and monitored through partnership arrangements. Regardless of their specialist area, link inspectors engage across the broad spectrum of social work and care services for adults and older people, children and young people and justice services in their link areas.
The key areas of activity for link inspector work are:
- monitoring the performance and quality of social work services
- monitoring the performance of partnership public protection arrangements
- identifying factors which are supporting social work services to deliver good or improved outcomes, and any barriers
- highlighting risks to the delivery of positive outcomes by social work services, and the potential impact of those risks
- identifying good practice within social work service and disseminating this more widely
- supporting the efforts of local authorities and partnerships to build capacity for continuous improvement.
The Care Inspectorate also provides relationship managers for each council area, with responsibility for assurance and improvement work in relation to regulated services. There is a relationship manager for adult services and one for ELC. The link inspector and relationship managers work closely together.
More information about the relationship manager role can be found here.
You can get information about the link inspector for a particular local authority area by e-mailing the strategic support team at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Information on the link inspector role for local authorities and partnerships can be found here.