CQC Compliance Quality Assurance
Care & Client Management

As reported on April the 1st 2011, the SCRC was replaced by the SCSWIS (Social Care and Social Work Improvement Scotland) which also took over from Scotland's Social Work Inspection Agency.

The Social Care and Social Work Improvement Scotland regulator, commonly known as the SCSWIS, was set up as of the 1st April 2011 under the Public Services Reform (Scotland) Act 2010. As an independent regulator it has its own Board responsible for its governance.  It is funded by the registration and continuations fees charged by the Scottish Government.  It's purpose is, as was the now defunct regulator the SCRC (also known as the Care Commission), to scrutinse and improve care, social work and child protection services for the benefit of all service users. It brings together functions that were once carried out by the Care Commission, the Social Work Inspection Agency and HMIE's child protection team. It is not an evolution of  the Care Commission, but a distinct and new body, acting as the sole regulator for adult social care in Scotland.

The National Care Standards which apply to all regulated care services will remain in place, with the SCSWIS taking them into account when regulating services.  The full scope and purpose of the regulator is yet to be fully specified however, they have provided guidance on how they will seek to improve the level of care being offered within the adult social care sector in Scotland:

• By providing public assurance and protection of vulnerable individuals - thereby acting as a catalyst for improvement;
• Ensure that scruting and improvement activity is informed by a systematic analysis of risk, and targeted to the appropriate need;
• Informing service users by providing information on the quality of care being offered, so that people who opt to use these services can make more informed decisions;
• To inspect against the regulations associated with the Public Services Reform (Scotland) Act 2010, the National Care Standards and other agreed national benchmarks;
• To organise their scrutiny and improvement activity, including inspections around risks - targeting poorly performing services;
• To increase the frequency of unannouced inspections; and
• Developing new validation processes for self-evaluation (perhaps this is a hint at replicating the PCA process being pioneered by the CQC).

The SCSWIS have already announced that there will be no minimum frequency of inspections, but that poor performing providers of adult social care services can expect to be inspected more often than they are currently used to, with a corresponding decrease for those service providers who perform better in random inspections.  This represents a sea change from the previous regulator, with a greater emphasis placed on targeted inspections.

As further details become available about its aims and scope, we will update the website at QCS to reflect them, as well as make any necessary changes to our policies and procedures.