Regulation and inspection of out of school care services

Out of school care services are registered, inspected and graded by the Care Inspectorate. The Care Inspectorate also deal with complaints and take action to improve quality of services; in exceptional circumstances, they can also close services which are of consistent poor quality or expose services users to risks.

Services are inspected against the new (June 2017) Health and Social Care Standards: My support, my life.

These Health and Social Care Standards set out what we should expect when using health, social care or social work services in Scotland. They seek to provide better outcomes for everyone; to ensure that individuals are treated with respect and dignity, and that the basic human rights we are all entitled to are upheld.

The Standards are underpinned by five principles; dignity and respect, compassion, be included, responsive care and support and wellbeing.

The Standards are based on five headline outcomes:

• I experience high quality care and support that is right for me.
• I am fully involved in all decisions about my care and support.
• I have confidence in the people who support and care for me.
• I have confidence in the organisation providing my care and support.
• I experience a high quality environment if the organisation provides the premises.

Registration with the Care Inspectorate

When an out of school care service is starting up, their identified premises must be registered and inspected by the Care Inspectorate. The Care Inspectorate will indicate what adaptations, if any, must be made before opening and also the maximum number of children that will be allowed to attend the service at any one time.

If, at any time, a service wishes to increase the registered number of children, the service will need to apply for a variation to their original terms (again they will need to be inspected).

The Care Inspectorate should be informed when the named person registered with the Care Inspectorate, usually the manager, leaves, and another takes their place.

Inspection reports on any service are publicly available on the Care Inspectorate website and this includes details of any complaints upheld or regulatory recommendations made.

Grading of services

The Care Inspectorate grade services on a scale of 1 - 6 (unsatisfactory to excellent). Those services which are deemed to be “low-risk” overall: level 4 or above will not have annual inspections, whereas those that are high-risk: 3 or below will have annual inspections. Low-risk services will have at least one inspection within a 36 month period.