Our local authority inspection programme for 2020-21
We will be inspecting every local authority social services department between September 2020 and March 2021, including looking at support for disabled children and care experienced children.
During CIW’s recovery phase, our local authority inspection team will not be restarting our previous inspection programme, nor our routine engagement meetings with local authorities.
Instead we want to pilot a new more agile, increasingly virtual and responsive risk-based framework for review of local authority social services functions.
As part of our pilot for this type of inspection, we will look at:
- how well local authorities are keeping people safe and promoting well-being
- how well local authorities are providing early help, care and support and seamless transitions between services for disabled children and their families.
The inspection will evaluate the experience of adults and children, and the outcomes people achieve through their contact with services.
We will look for evidence of local authorities and partners having learnt lessons from their recent experience of COVID-19 and at their plans for service developments.
We propose to adopt a collaborative risk-based approach to our work, using two different types of inspection:
- short performance evaluation inspections which will result in a formal published letter, or
- full risk-based inspections which will result in a formal published report.
Both types of inspection will include a focus on disabled children, enabling us to complete the national review we started in 2019.
Rhondda Cynon Taf, Torfaen, Conwy and Ceredigion local authorities have already received an inspection of early help, care and support and transition for disabled children and their families.
We have written to directors of social services to update them on our new programme, and we will be encouraging people who use services, as well as parents/carers of disabled children, to send us feedback as part of our inspections.
How you can get involved
To send us your feedback on local authority social services at any time, visit our inspection page and click on ‘how you can get involved’, to find links to our surveys.