SERVICES for children and young people in Clackmannanshire and Stirling are improving, according to inspectors.
A specialist team from the Care Inspectorate and partner agencies returned to both areas to check on progress a year after a joint inspection raised concerns.
In 2014, inspectors highlighted issues about the availability and coordination of services to support families at an early stage to prevent difficulties arising or getting worse.
They also found weaknesses in assessment and planning which could leave some children and young people at risk.
Children’s services planning was not robust and leaders were not working effectively together to improve outcomes for children and young people.
However a report on the review – published last week – outlined positive steps have been taken in the Clackmannanshire and Stirling Community Partnership areas since.
Karen Reid, chief executive of the Care Inspectorate, said: “Joint inspections with our partners help us to assess how well services are delivering good outcomes for children and young people.
“Where we have concerns we do not hesitate to raise these so that those delivering services understand what needs to improve.
“When we inspected the area in 2014, we identified five key areas which needed improvement.
“Our progress review identified improvements made in the past year.
“Partners have worked well to deliver improvement to outcomes for children and young people and it is our expectation that this continues to improve.
“During our inspection we gained confidence that community planning partners had the capacity to maintain their present rate of progress and in the future achieve their goal of sustained improvement and change.
“Our link inspector will continue to monitor progress and provide support and challenge to partners in Stirling and Clackmannanshire in further developing and delivering improvements in outcomes for children and young people.
“Since concluding the progress review, we learned that the arrangement to jointly deliver services between the two partnerships in place at the time of the inspection is being reviewed.
“We will continue to monitor progress and offer support to partners delivering services to children and young people in the area."
Cllr Les Sharp, chairman of the Clackmannanshire Alliance, welcomed publication of the report and the acknowledgement of the significant progress made to ensure all partner agencies are working together to provide services that protect and support children and young people and their families.
He said: “An Integrated Children’s Services Plan has been developed as part of the comprehensive improvement to ensure that all services build on the foundations for continuing improvement and the sense of renewed confidence in the services to ensure that we are doing all we can to protect young people from abuse and neglect and improve their wellbeing."
The review found that partners delivering services had responded constructively to make improvements.
Assessment of risks was stronger with multi-agency discussions and planning meetings now taking place promptly when there were concerns about children’s safety or well-being.
Staff had been given useful tools to help them assess the needs of children at risk of neglect and the quality of assessment was steadily improving, albeit there was still some way to go to ensure consistently high quality.
Children’s plans were of a better quality and were being reviewed more regularly, while more young people were involved in their own planning meetings.
Staff across services were working more closely together to identify children and families who need help at an early stage and to provide support.
Strategic planning was improving and the right people were now working together in a clear structure to monitor quality and gather information with which to plan future service developments.
Leaders were now working more collaboratively and were directing improvements more effectively, starting to win staff confidence.
Governance and accountability for public protection had also improved.