Inspectors find children services in Clackmannanshire and Stirling improving
Services for children and young people in Clackmannanshire and Stirling are improving, inspectors have found.
A team of specialist inspectors from the Care Inspectorate and partner agencies returned to both areas to check on progress a year after an inspection raised concerns.
In 2014 inspectors raised concerns about the availability and co-ordination of services to support families at an early stage to prevent difficulties arising or getting worse. Inspectors also found weaknesses in assessment and planning which could leave some children and young people at risk. Children’s services planning was not robust and leaders were not working effectively together to improve outcomes for children and young people.
Following publication of that report in May 2014, inspectors have now carried out a progress review to check that improvements had been made on the concerns raised.
The review found that over the last year, partners delivering services in the Clackmannanshire and Stirling Community Planning Partnership areas had responded constructively to make improvements.
Assessment of risks was stronger with multi-agency discussions and planning meetings now taking place promptly when there were concerns about children’s safety or well-being.
Staff had been given useful tools to help them assess the needs of children at risk of neglect and the quality of assessment was steadily improving, albeit there was still some way to go to ensure consistently high quality.
Children’s plans were of a better quality and were being reviewed more regularly. More young people were involved in their own planning meetings.
Staff across services were working more closely together to identify children and families who need help at an early stage and to provide support.
Strategic planning was improving and the right people were now working together in a clear structure to monitor quality and gather information with which to plan future service developments.
Leaders were now working more collaboratively and were directing improvements more effectively, starting to win staff confidence.
Governance and accountability for public protection had also improved.
Karen Reid, Chief Executive of the Care Inspectorate said: “Joint inspections with our partners help us to assess how well services are delivering good outcomes for children and young people.
“Where we have concerns we do not hesitate to raise these so that those delivering services understand what needs to improve.
“When we inspected the area in 2014 we identified five key areas which needed improvement. Our progress review identified improvements made in the past year.
“Partners have worked well to deliver improvement to outcomes for children and young people and it is our expectation that this continues to improve.
“During our inspection we gained confidence that community planning partners had the capacity to maintain their present rate of progress and in the future achieve their goal of sustained improvement and change.
“Our link inspector will continue to monitor progress and provide support and challenge to partners in Stirling and Clackmannanshire in further developing and delivering improvements in outcomes for children and young people.
“Since concluding the progress review, we learned that the arrangement to jointly deliver services between the two partnerships in place at the time of the inspection is being reviewed.
“We will continue to monitor progress and offer support to partners delivering services to children and young people in the area.”
The reports are available here:
