Council defends poor child protection report

Stirling Council has delivered a robust defence against a new report which condemns its child protection services as among the weakest in Scotland.

The report into how well children in Scotland are protected from risk was unveiled on Thursday by the Care Inspectorate.

Joint inspections of services to protect children in each of the country’s 32 council areas were carried out from 2009-12, after several high-profile cases of failings were publicised from across the UK.

The findings of the three-year inspection – presented to Minister for Children and Young People, Aileen Campbell MSP – revealed that Stirling had received a “weak” evaluation for four out of six quality indicators.

Important weaknesses were identified in the following areas: improvements in performance, children and young people benefit from strategies to minimise harm, children and young people are helped by the actions taken in immediate response to concerns and improvement through self-evaluation.

A classification of “good” was awarded on the basis that children are listened to, understood and respected and a satisfactory was granted in relation to children and young people’s needs being met.

However, the inspection, on which those evaluations were made, took place in June 2010.

Stirling Council insists it has taken steps to deal with the shortcomings highlighted.

A spokesperson said: “Following that inspection (three years ago) the council took immediate steps to address the areas of concern highlighted by the Inspectorate.

“In the follow-through inspection in 2011 inspectors noted good progress in implementing improvements.

“A further external inspection was carried out in the first half of 2012 (the ISLA inspection) and was reported to the council last summer.

“Again, good progress on all improvement actions was recognised. The council has just completed a self-evaluation, supported by the Care Inspectorate, to be reported to a future council meeting.”

Good practice identified in this more recent review included a pre-birth planning service, which gives support to vulnerable pregnant women and their families, better transition programmes for vulnerable young people moving to secondary schools and the co-location of police, social work, health and education staff within the Forth Valley Public Protection Service.

Care Inspectorate Chief Executive Annette Bruton, said: “It is everybody’s business to make sure our children are safe. Abuse, neglect and exploitation often happen in secret, so people need to know that different professionals are all working together to spot signs and minimise risk.

“No system alone can guarantee that tragedy will never strike, or exploitation will never occur, but there is encouraging news from our report. While there is room for improvement, it is clear that leadership across different agencies is stronger now than four years ago.”