Acknowledgement
We would like to thank North Lanarkshire's staff and people using services for the warm welcome they extended to us at all stages of this inspection. We found that people had prepared for our visits and were open and considered in their responses to our questions. The local authority inspection co-ordinator and her team deserve particular praise as they gave us excellent briefing notes before each session and ensured that there were few, if any, hitches in the timetabling of 124 sessions over two weeks of fieldwork. We would also like to thank the social work staff who worked with us during the case file audit in July 2008.