How we inspect your council
Find out what happens when we visit a council to check
how well they are providing adults with social care
services.
An inspection is an in-depth look at a part of how a council
provides social care services.
An inspection might focus on how well a council provides
services to:
- Older people
- People with learning disabilities
- People with mental health problems
- People with physical and sensory disabilities
An inspection might look at a council's performance across one
to three different themes. Inspections of this type are called
Independence, wellbeing and choice inspections.
There are seven possible themes. These are:
- People are safeguarded
- People are well informed
- People receive personalised services
- People have access to preventative services
- People are involved
- People have equal access
- People benefit from effective partnership working
We will judge a Council by how well they meet the outcomes set
out in our Performance Assessment Framework (PAF).
The things our inspectors assess include:
- how well local services meet people's needs
- whether they provide the right specialist services and how good
they are
- how effectively the council involves local people in planning
services.
Our report looks at things that are successful, things that are
less successful, and says what needs to be changed and
improved.
These inspections, together with a review of the council's short
and long-term plans, tells us how effective their social services
are.
Involving people who use services
When inspecting a council we send out surveys to people who use
services and their supporters to get their views.
We also talk to a sample of people who use the services of the
council we're inspecting.
On our council inspections, people who use services from a
different part of the country join our inspection team.
We call these people Experts by experience because their
knowledge comes directly from their experiences of using
services.
Star ratings
Our council inspections, together with other information, help
us build an overall picture of how well the council is providing
social care services.
We publish our verdict on the council's overall performance once
a year in the form of a star rating – three stars being the highest
score.