A new regulator for Scotland: Social Care and Social Work Improvement Scotland

From 1 April 2011 a new public body will begin operating in Scotland: Social Care and Social Work Improvement Scotland. This body has been created by the Public Service Reform (Scotland) Act 2010.

Social Care and Social Work Improvement Scotland (SCSWIS) will be an independent organisation with its own Board responsible for its governance. It will be funded by the registration and continuation fees it charges and by Scottish Government. It will operate independently to scrutinise and improve care, social work and child protection services for the benefit of the people who use them.

SCSWIS will work to improve care, social work and child protection in a number of ways:

- provide public assurance and protection of vulnerable individuals and act as a catalyst for improvement 
- ensure our scrutiny and improvement activity is informed by a systematic analysis of risk and targeted where it is needed most 
- provide information on quality of care so that people who use and choose services and their carers and those responsible for commissioning services can make informed choices 
- inspect against the regulations associated with the new Public Services Reform (Scotland) Act 2010, the National Care Standards and other agreed national benchmarks 
- organise our scrutiny and improvement activity, including inspections, around risk; targeting poorly performing services 
- make more use of unannounced inspection 
- implement national centralised registration and complaints functions 
- develop our workforce to be more skilled at identifying and analysing risk 
- develop new validation processes for self-evaluation 
- coordinate joint planning of scrutiny and improvement activity and multi-disciplinary inspections with HIS and other scrutiny bodies.

For the latest information on changeover and how the new body will work, visit www.scswis.com or get in touch with the Care Commission www.carecommission.com Tel: 0845 603 0890 enquiries@carecommission.com

How to get in touch with SCSWIS from 1 April 2011
Website: www.scswis.com
Email: enquiries@scswis.com
Telephone: 0845 600 9527