Island Social Work Gets The ‘Once Over’

The Scottish Executive is undertaking their first ever inspection of Shetland Islands Council’s social work department. The inspection began in December and is part of a three year national rolling programme. Shetland will be the last of the Scottish islands to be inspected.

This week a team from the social work inspection agency will arrive on the isles to have a final reading of the case studies that have been produced by the social work department. The team will then return to Shetland in March and spend two weeks looking into all aspects of social work services.

Questionnaires were sent out to staff, clients and carers last month and the results will be studied as part of the overall inspection. The team will write an overall report once all the information has been collated and produce an action plan for future developments.

Shetland Islands Council executive director of education and social care Brian Doughty said: “This is a comprehensive performance inspection of Shetland’s social work services. Such things are always challenging but I stand by the council’s services and would hope we will receive a good rating from the inspectors.”