Social Services Inspectorate
Approach to Inspections
In carrying out inspections we seek to:
- focus on service delivery and practice at the point of impact on users and carers;
- interview people who use social work and social care services;
- interview social work/social care staff and others involved in providing a service;
- visit the sites of service delivery;
- include lay people;
- systematically collect information, analyses and professional judgements;
- evaluate services against previously agreed standards and criteria;
- ensure evidence on which conclusions and recommendations are based are clearly stated;
- report the findings and recommendations to the agency inspected;
- make inspection reports available to the public.
Where
appropriate, a multi-disciplinary approach to inspection work is used and may involve medical, nursing
or professionals allied to medicine.
In some cases major thematic inspections are informed by a literature
review commissioned by us and undertaken in advance of the fieldwork part of the inspection. After each
inspection is completed we review both the standards which were used and evaluate the process of the
inspection. This is to help us work towards continually improving our own work.
