CQC Compliance Quality Assurance
Care & Client Management

The Care and Social Services Inspectorate Wales (CSSIW) is the statutory regulator for social care, early years services and local authority care and support services in Wales. The CSSIW carries out its functions on behalf of Welsh Ministers, as a Department within the Welsh Assembly Government, although there are a number of safeguards in place to ensure their independence. The CSSIW came into being in 2003, taking over from Health Authority Inspection Units which were responsible for the inspection and regulations of Nursing Homes, Local Authority Inspection units which registered and inspected Residential Homes, and the Social Services Inspectorate which inspected Local Authority provision. Inspection reports are published online.

The legislative background to the Care and Social Services Inspectorate Wales is:

• The Health and Social Care (Community Health and Standards) Act 2003 gives powers to review the way in which local authorities discharge their social services functions.
• The Care Standards Act 2000, The Children Act 1989 (as amended) and The Adoption and Children Act 2002 give powers to register and inspect establishments and agencies in Wales that provide social care.

The web site of the CSSIW says:
"Our role is to make professional assessments and judgements about social care, early years and social services and so encourage improvement by the service providers.

We do this through our four regions (North Wales; South East Wales; Mid and South Wales and South West Wales) which are the focus for professional assessment and judgement about services and organisations. They inspect and review local authority social services, and regulate and inspect care settings and agencies.

In April 2009 we introduced a new overarching framework for local authority social services inspection, review and evaluation. It is a proportionate and integrated approach that is designed to be citizen focussed and to encourage improvement, innovation and ownership of change by local government.

We regulate

• Care homes for adults – including care homes which provide nursing care
• Domiciliary care agencies
• Adult placement schemes
• Nurses' agencies
• Children’s homes
• Day care services for children – childminders, full day care, sessional day care, out of school care, crèches and open access play
• Public sector and independent fostering agencies
• Public sector and voluntary adoption agencies
• Boarding schools, residential special schools and further education colleges which accommodate students under 18
• Residential family centres

Regulation includes

• Registration – we decide who can provide services;
• Inspection – we inspect those services and publish reports;
• Complaints – we investigate and deal with complaints (if they cannot be dealt with by the providers’ own complaints procedures);
• Compliance – we support compliance with the regulations; and
• Enforcement – we take enforcement action to make sure that the requirements of the Care Standards Act and its associated regulations are met.

We publish reports on the findings of our assessments. These are available on the publications section of our website or from our regional offices."