Joint inspection of services to protect children and young
people in the North Lanarkshire Council area
3 March 2011
The inspection of services to protect children1 in the North
Lanarkshire Council area was carried out in November and
December 2010. We looked at the services provided by health,
the police, the council and the Children’s Reporter. We also
looked at the services provided by voluntary and independent
organisations. Our report describes how good they are at
protecting children and keeping them safe. To find this out we
read a sample of children’s files which were held by these
services. We talked to a number of children and their parents
and carers to listen to their views about the services they had
received. We also spoke to staff in these services who worked
with children, parents and carers and to senior managers who
were responsible for these staff and the services they provided.
What we found and tell you about in this report is based on a
sample of children and families. We cannot promise that this will
be the same for every child in the area who might need help.
A team of inspectors gathered all the information and helped to
write this report. These inspectors have experience of working
across the range of services involved in protecting children.
Inspection teams include professional staff who work in council
areas elsewhere in Scotland.
1
When we refer to children in this report we mean children and young people
under the age of 18 years.
Contents
1. The area
2. Particular strengths that make a difference to children and families
3. Examples of good practice
4. How well are the needs of children and families met?
5. How good is the management and delivery of services?
6. How good is leadership and direction?
7. How are services improving?
8. What happens next?
1. The area
North Lanarkshire is situated in the central belt of Scotland. It covers
an area of 473 square kilometres, from the Kilsyth Hills in the north to
Wishaw and Overtown in the south. North Lanarkshire has a
population of 323,780 with 22% under the age of 18 years compared
to the Scottish average of 20.5%.
The number of children referred to the council for child protection
enquiries increased between 2007 and 2010. The level of referrals is
lower than that for Scotland as a whole. The proportion of children on
the Child Protection Register (CPR) in North Lanarkshire Council is 1
per 1000 which is significantly lower than the national average of 2.8.
1
2. Particular strengths that made a difference to children and
families

Advice and practical support to families, helping them to overcome
their problems at an early stage.

A unified approach by staff across services to improving children’s life
chances.

Services’ prompt and effective response to families who need help
outside office hours.

Work by managers and staff in reviewing their work to improve local
services.

Outstanding leadership and direction provided by Chief Officers and
the Child Protection Committee.
3. Examples of good practice

Play it safe, an imaginative programme for 3 -18 year olds to help
children keep themselves safe.

The Motherwell Domestic Abuse Screening Model, a very effective
process for making sure children get the help they need without
delay.

Services’ outstanding work with families in one local community to
promote equality and help them keep their children safe.
2
4. How well are the needs of children and families met?
Children are very well supported by staff across services to
understand their right to be safe. Staff in schools and nurseries work
very well with other services to promote children’s safety. This
includes safe use of the internet and mobile phones. Well targeted
lessons about personal safety are taught at each stage. Social
workers and staff from other services work very effectively with
individual children who need advice about personal safety. An
innovative programme, Play it Safe, has been developed with the
involvement of children and their teachers. This helps to inform them
about keeping safe and engage them with child protection issues as
they grow up. Many children and families get help and guidance early
enough to stop problems developing or becoming worse. Staff are
becoming increasingly skilled at identifying children affected by
domestic abuse, and parents’ drugs and alcohol misuse. They are
ensuring that these children get timely and effective support.
Vulnerable unborn babies are identified early and help is provided to
reduce risks before they are born. A well considered range of support
programmes is helping parents to become more skilled and confident
in bringing up their children.
Staff are very alert to children who may be at risk. They take prompt
and effective action whenever concerns are raised about children’s
safety and welfare, including at night time and weekends. Police and
social workers take appropriate action to protect children while
carrying out their investigations.
Children and families are usually kept informed about the progress of
child protection investigations. When it is not safe for children to
remain at home, staff find a suitable place for them to be cared for. In
most cases, staff carry out checks on carers to ensure children’s
safety, but do not always record these clearly in the child’s records.
Services make effective use of legal measures, when these are
necessary, to keep children safe.
3
Children’s needs are met very well by staff working effectively
together. Children who need help to overcome the effects of abuse
and neglect are now benefiting from more readily available specialist
services. Young people have their emotional needs better met
through counselling in schools and increased availability of Child and
Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS). The Community
Alternatives Intensive Support Service and highly effective voluntary
services are very successfully providing specially tailored intensive
support to individual families. A few families would benefit from
specialist services being provided earlier or continued for longer.
Services pay very close attention to particular groups of children who
may need help to keep safe. Clear guidance supports staff well in
responding without delay when children go missing from education.
Risks posed to children who run away from home or care placements
are carefully assessed and appropriate action taken. The Child
Protection Committee (CPC) is successfully using the forthcoming
International Children’s Games to raise awareness of the needs of
children who may have been brought into or moved around the country
illegally. Helpful advice is available to young people worried or
experiencing bullying about their sexual identity. Very sensitive
partnership working with a minority ethnic community is helping adults
to keep their children safe and receive suitable health and education
provision.
Children, parents and carers benefit from very effective communication
with staff. Regular and reliable contact enables staff to listen carefully
to the views of children and families and ensures that these are taken
into account when making decisions in almost all cases. Staff respond
creatively to the needs of children and families who require support to
overcome barriers to communication. Children and families are
usually able to form trusting relationships with staff, even in
challenging circumstances. Parents take a full part in decision-making
meetings and are encouraged and supported to give their views.
4
Older children often express their views at important meetings and are
helped to do this by staff, if required. Independent supporters are
more readily available and are helping to increase the involvement of
children and parents in making important decisions about their lives.
5. How good is the management and delivery of services?
Assessment of risks and needs has improved, with staff across
services using a common approach to consider how well children’s
needs are met. The needs of children affected by domestic abuse are
now assessed jointly so that suitable support can be provided at an
early stage. Overall, staff seek appropriate information when making
initial assessments. More work is needed to ensure staff gather all
relevant information, including information about family members’
health and any risks they might pose to children. Children whose
parents misuse drugs or alcohol are benefiting from a more
child-centred approach by addictions services. Staff share information
very well to manage risks posed to vulnerable children by sex
offenders.
Paediatricians are available at all times to give advice and carry out
medical examinations. These examinations are carried out in a
suitable child-friendly environment. Plans are now being developed to
involve appropriate health and medical staff in planning investigations
of concerns about children.
Managers have been very successful at helping staff focus clearly on
improving outcomes for children when carrying out their day-to-day
work. Encouraging progress is being made towards developing more
helpful plans for children against which progress can be measured.
Staff continue to work well together to implement plans for children on
the Child Protection Register (CPR). In most cases, coordinated
support helps maintain progress when children’s names are removed
5
from the CPR. Action taken by managers is starting to be successful
in reducing delays for children who cannot return home and need
alternative long-term care. More work is needed to increase the
number of carers able to provide long-term care for children.
Chief Officers and senior managers consistently encourage staff at all
levels to review their work and make changes to achieve better
outcomes for children and families. The CPC has involved a wide
range of staff in activities to identify strengths and areas for
improvement. As a result, several important improvements have been
made. A very successful television advertising campaign has
increased public awareness of internet safety. Managers and staff
have been very successful in developing new ways to involve children
and families in policy development. The CPC should continue to build
on the significant progress made on involving children in policy
development.
6. How good is leadership and direction?
Chief Officers have worked very effectively to develop a clear vision for
the protection of children. It promotes equality for all children and
highlights their rights to be cared for, protected and respected. The
vision stresses the responsibilities of all staff to promote children’s
safety and well-being. Staff understand the vision well and use it to
direct their day-to-day work. They share a common purpose to
improve the lives of children and families. Chief Officers take their
joint responsibilities for protecting children very seriously. The Chief
Officers Group (COG) ensures there are clear reporting arrangements
and that staff understand the duties and priorities of the CPC. The
COG robustly steers and promotes very effective joint working to
protect children. A number of successful developments continue to
strengthen partnership approaches to keeping children safe. Very
strong leadership is supporting the successful implementation of new
ways of working to achieve better outcomes for vulnerable children
and families.
6
7. How are services improving?
The North Lanarkshire Partnership’s Integrated Children’s Services
Plan sets out clear priorities for child protection. Progress in achieving
the aims set out in the plan is regularly monitored and reviewed.
Managers and staff are improving a number of key areas of their work
which they have identified through carefully planned reviews. A more
effective reporting format for child protection processes has led to
better analysis of trends and higher quality local services. More
extensive use of child protection messaging is ensuring that higher
numbers of staff across services have the information they need to
help keep children safe.
Senior managers are aware of the need to give a high priority to their
work to improve the process for planning investigations when there are
concerns about children.
8. What happens next?
We are confident that the services will be able to make the
necessary improvements in light of the inspection findings. As a
result, we will make no more visits in connection with this
inspection. Our link inspector will maintain contact with services to
support improvements.
We have agreed the following area for improvement with services in
the North Lanarkshire Council area.

Implement plans to fully involve appropriate health and medical
staff in planning investigations.
7
Quality indicators help services and inspectors to judge what is good
and what needs to be improved in the work to protect children and
meet their needs. You can find these quality indicators in the HMIE
publication How well do we protect children and meet their needs?
Following the inspection of each local authority area, the Scottish
Government gathers evaluations of four important quality indicators to
keep track of how well services across Scotland are doing to protect
children and meet their needs.
Here are the evaluations of these for the North Lanarkshire Council
area.
Children are listened to and respected
Children are helped to keep safe
Response to immediate concerns
Meeting needs and reducing long term harm
very good
very good
very good
very good
We also evaluated the following aspects of the work within the local
authority area.
Self-evaluation
Improvements in performance
very good
very good
Managing Inspector: Clare Lamont
March 2011
8
To find out more about inspections or get an electronic copy of this
report go to www.hmie.gov.uk. Please contact the Business
Management and Communications Team (BMCT) if you wish to
enquire about our arrangements for translated or other appropriate
versions.
If you wish to comment about any of our inspections, contact us
at HMIEenquiries@hmie.gsi.gov.uk or alternatively you should write in
the first instance to BMCT, HM Inspectorate of Education, Denholm
House, Almondvale Business Park, Almondvale Way,
Livingston EH54 6GA.
Our complaints procedure is available from our website
www.hmie.gov.uk or alternatively you can write to our Complaints
Manager, at the address above or by telephoning 01506 600259.
If you are not satisfied with the action we have taken at the end of our
complaints procedure, you can raise your complaint with the Scottish
Public Services Ombudsman (SPSO). The SPSO is fully independent
and has powers to investigate complaints about Government
departments and agencies. You should write to SPSO, Freepost
EH641, Edinburgh EH3 0BR. You can also telephone 0800 377 7330,
fax 0800 377 7331 or e-mail: ask@spso.org.uk. More information
about the Ombudsman’s office can be obtained from the website
at www.spso.org.uk.
This report uses the following word scale to make clear
judgements made by inspectors.
excellent
very good
good
satisfactory
weak
unsatisfactory
outstanding, sector leading
major strengths
important strengths with some areas for
improvement
strengths just outweigh weaknesses
important weaknesses
major weaknesses
Crown Copyright 2011
HM Inspectorate of Education