How well do we protect Scotland's children?
Thursday 26 November 2009
In March 2004 Scottish Ministers announced there would be a new multidisciplinary children's services inspection team, based in Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Education. The team's first task would be to undertake inspections of child protection services in all 32 local authority areas across Scotland. The work of this team both complemented and reinforced other aspects of the child protection reform programme. It was to be led by HMIE working in partnership with other scrutiny bodies, including the Social Work Inspection Agency (SWIA), the Scottish Commission for the Regulation of Care (Care Commission), Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC), the NHS Quality Improvement Scotland (NHS QIS) and Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Prisons for Scotland (HMIP).
A strategic group involving representatives from these scrutiny bodies was established and extended to include representatives from Audit Scotland and policy colleagues from the Scottish Executive. A reference group involving representatives from the services delivering child protection complemented the work of the strategic group. Both groups provided expert assistance in considering and refining the approaches adopted to developing the inspection model.