Inspectors lack confidence in Dumfries & Galloway’s children’s service
Inspectors have warned they are “not confident” that vulnerable children and young people in Dumfries and Galloway are being kept safe.
A report on a joint inspection of services for children and young people in the area, published today, has called for urgent action to ensure children and young people are protected and their needs met.
The inspection was led by Scotland’s social care watchdog, the Care Inspectorate, in partnership with other agencies and looked at the work of the Community Planning Partnership, comprising the council, police, health board and others.
The report notes: “Based on the findings of this joint inspection, inspectors are not confident that all children and young people are receiving timely and effective help to keep them safe.
“Community Planning Partners should, as a matter of urgency, work together to ensure that children and young people are protected and their needs met.
“Partners must ensure that they deliver on important aspects of services for children where the pace of change has been unacceptably slow.”
The inspection was carried out in January and February 2014 by teams of expert inspectors from the Care Inspectorate, Education Scotland, Healthcare Improvement Scotland and Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary for Scotland.
Inspectors awarded grades across nine key quality indicators.
One quality indicator, “assessing and responding to risks and needs,” was found to be ‘unsatisfactory,’ indicating that there are major weaknesses which need to be addressed urgently.
Three further indicators were found to be ‘weak,’ indicating important weaknesses had been found.
The remaining five indicators were found to be ‘adequate.’
Annette Bruton, the Care Inspectorate’s Chief Executive said: “Protecting young people and ensuring that the services they and their families access are of the very highest standard is a crucial part of the work we do as Scotland’s care regulator.
“By working with our partners we can ensure we build up an accurate picture of how services are performing.
“This report sets out clear areas where improvement is required urgently to ensure that all children and young people in Dumfries and Galloway are protected and to ensure that they can access safe, compassionate, good quality services which meet their needs and respect their rights. We are working closely with community planning partners to make the necessary improvements.”
The Care Inspectorate will now ask the Dumfries and Galloway Community Planning
Partnership to publish a joint action plan detailing how it intends to make improvements identified as a result of the inspection.
Inspectors will revisit the area in the next six months to report on progress.
The full report is available here: http://cinsp.in/1m6gLUt
