Why is this National Indicator important?
No child should have to suffer neglect or abuse. When we do discover such circumstances, we owe it to our children to act quickly, effectively and collaboratively. That is why the joint inspections of child protection services, led by the Care Inspectorate, are so important. The inspections provide nationally-comparable data, with six indicators, on how well children at risk in Scotland have their needs identified, assessed and acted upon so as to keep them safe from neglect or abuse.
The reports provide the Scottish Government with the assurance that the various agencies providing protection services to vulnerable children (principally social work, police, health, voluntary organisations, education and the Scottish Children's Reporters Administration) are working well together locally, under the strategic direction of their local multi-agency Child Protection Committees (CPCs). An increase in the proportion of local authority areas receiving positive inspection reports provides evidence of an increasingly confident and competent children's workforce, skilled at identifying and assessing how best to meet the individual needs of the children who require their services.
The current round of child protection inspections ends in April 2012. The inspections will be replaced with a new set of inspections that will consider vulnerable children and young people in the wider context of children's services. Consequently, the National Indicator will be refreshed in Spring 2012 to reflect the new approach to inspections.
What will influence this National Indicator?
Scotland's 30 CPCs set the strategic priorities locally for the improved multi-agency policies, procedures, training programmes and services which help ensure that children at risk are protected. A key influence is the joint inspection process itself. This is already driving up standards, as CPC areas that have already been inspected begin to implement the recommendations for follow-up action. The new inspection model, to be introduced in April 2012, will put strong emphasis on the links between external scrutiny, self-evaluation and robust performance management.
A more fundamental positive cultural influence is the growing extent to which all services working with children understand that child protection is everyone's business. This dictates that every organisation and every worker has a duty to recognise signs that a child might be at risk and to take appropriate action where they have concerns, in line with the Getting it right for every child approach.
What is the Government's role?
We are working with inspectorates, CPCs and other stakeholders to address national gaps revealed by inspection and to put in place a new, child-centred approach to inspection. Consistent with the Getting it right for every child agenda for children's services, we recently revised our national child protection guidance, and have been taking forward a number of manifesto commitments designed to provide specific practical support to services in child protection such as the development of a national risk assessment toolkit and a national child protection competency and skills framework.
Children's services more generally will be improved through a range of initiatives being taken forward, including legislation on children's rights and children's services improvement, a national parenting strategy and the shift of spending and focus of services towards preventative spend and early intervention.
How is Scotland performing?
In the second cycle of child protection inspections 25 Local Authorities have been inspected to date by HMIE (up to April 2011) and the Care Inspectorate (since April 2011). 92 percent have had positive inspection reports - an increase over the previous round.
A baseline of three years of local authority data was completed in September 2009. The baseline includes 30 of the 32 local authorities. Two of these were pilot authorities in the first cycle and so are not directly comparable. The relevant figure is 77%.
Percentage of local authorities receiving positive child protection inspection reports
| | Percentage of local authority areas | Number of local authority areas inspected |
| August 2009 - December 2011 | 92% | 25 |
| May 2006 - Feb 2009 1 | 77% | 30 |
The data for this table is available at the bottom of the page
Source: Summary of Indicative Quality Indicators from HMIE Inspection for 2009 and 2010. Inspection reports are now provided by the Care Inspectorate.
1. All 32 local authority areas have been inspected. Data do not include East Dunbartonshire and Highland as they were pilot inspections. Inspections refer to the first local authority area child protection inspection not to the evaluations from any subsequent follow through inspections.
Criteria for recent change
The second cycle of inspections has not been completed yet so the results of this are not directly comparable to the first (completed) cycle's figures.
However, based on the information currently available, a "Performance Improving" arrow is suggested.
The threshold will be determined once the second cycle of inspections is completed.
Further Information
For information on general methodological approach, please click here.
Scotland Performs Technical Note
Who are our partners?
Child Protection Committees
Care Inspectorate
Education Scotland
Healthcare Improvement Scotland
Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary
Local Authorities
Convention of Scottish Local Authorities
Association of the Directors of Social Work
Health Boards
Police Forces
Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland
Scottish Children's Reporter Administration
Voluntary sector organisations
Related Strategic Objectives
Safer and Stronger
Smarter
Healthier
Wealthier and Fairer