Acknowledgement
We wish to thank all those who assisted us during this inspection. We received a very warm welcome from everyone we met in Comhairle nan Eilean Siar - staff, stakeholders and people who use services. We are grateful to those who took the time to complete and send us the questionnaires we sent out as part of the inspection process. We are particularly grateful to the social work department inspection co-ordinator who provided us with all the information we requested so efficiently as well as to the two members of staff who helped us with the file reading. We would also like to thank all those we interviewed for responding to our questions in such an open and constructive way.
Social Work Inspection Agency
This inspection of social work services in Comhairle nan Eilean Siar is the fifth full performance inspection of the social work services provided by Scottish local authorities (three pilot inspections were undertaken in the autumn of 2005). Each inspection focuses on the local authority's approach to continuous improvement.
The Social Work Inspection Agency ( SWIA) is planning to inspect all of Scotland's local authority social work services by the end of 2008.
SWIA has adopted a six-point scale to evaluate the performance of local authority social work services. This report provides an evaluation in respect of each of the ten areas for evaluation set out in the performance inspection model ( PIM), found at appendix 1.1. The six-point scale is set out below.
Level | Definition | Description |
|---|
Level 6 | Excellent | Excellent or outstanding |
Level 5 | Very good | Major strengths |
Level 4 | Good | Important strengths with some areas for improvement |
Level 3 | Adequate | Strengths just outweigh weaknesses |
Level 2 | Weak | Important weaknesses |
Level 1 | Unsatisfactory | Major weaknesses |
This report mainly uses the past tense - we state the position at the time of the inspection (May 2006). We recognise that some things may have changed since then.
Because Comhairle nan Eilean Siar is a small authority we have included actual numbers in our analyses where percentage figures could be misleading.