Scottish Borders Council Social Work Services
The next item of business is a statement by Peter Peacock on Scottish Borders Council social work services.
On a point of order, Presiding Officer.
I will take any points of order after the statement, at about 20 to 4, as the statement is serious. The minister will take questions at the end of his statement, so there should be no interventions.
In March 2002, a woman with learning disabilities was admitted to Borders general hospital having suffered extreme levels of physical and sexual abuse for an extended period. In September 2002, three men were imprisoned for that abuse. Following those events, Scottish Borders Council commissioned David Stallard, Anne Black and Peter Bates to undertake separate pieces of work to help it to identify the actions that are necessary as a consequence of the issues that came to light.
Following examination of the first two reports to Scottish Borders Council, the social work services inspectorate recommended to me that it should conduct a full inspection into the department of lifelong care at Scottish Borders Council and its handling of the case. Euan Robson and I agreed that that inspection should take place and I am publishing the SWSI report today. In addition, I am publishing a joint statement from SWSI and the Mental Welfare Commission that includes the recommendations from a separate report that the Mental Welfare Commission undertook of its own volition on the health service dimension of the case.
In all my experience in public life, dating back more than 20 years, and in my experience of dealing with social welfare issues for a national voluntary organisation for many years, I have never come across a more harrowing or appalling case than this. So horrific are many of the incidents that Parliament will understand that details of the individuals and what happened to them should not and will not be revealed.
As MSPs and the wider public will see, the SWSI report is a damning verdict on a catalogue of repeated and significant failings by individuals and key managers in the social work service in the Borders. The Mental Welfare Commission has highlighted failings in health services. Both reports show that there are also some issues that the police need to address. The failings are not of recent origin but span a prolonged period of time. Those who are involved had their first contacts with the social work departments back in the early 1970s. The conclusion of the report is that a number of other individuals were the subject of neglect and abuse as well as the individual who was admitted to Borders general hospital. Over a period of three decades, those individuals variously suffered severe forms of physical and emotional neglect, sexual abuse and exploitation and financial exploitation. The report concludes that much of the abuse and exploitation over—I repeat—three decades could have been avoided had appropriate action been taken by the agencies involved.
The report graphically illustrates not just individual failings, but failings in comprehensive assessment and care planning, in the understanding of provisions for guardianship and in adherence to local policy and national guidelines. There was failure to follow Scottish Social Services Council codes of practice, grossly inadequate recording practices in casework, failings in information sharing between agencies and by key managers at key times and inadequate supervision and monitoring of staff performance. It is a depressingly familiar tale, which resonates with the findings of all too many inquiries over the years into child abuse cases throughout the United Kingdom.
The case started as a child abuse case; the children were failed by the system, just as they were subsequently failed as adults. As I indicated, the report graphically illustrates the failings, and I will quote a number of extracts from the report. It says:
"The repeated failures of social work to act effectively in response to allegations of abuse over some 3 decades undoubtedly contributed to the serious sexual abuse of at least 3 individuals and to the serious physical neglect of another … Unequivocal prompts to act occurred routinely over the decades prior to March 2002. Between 1976 and December 2001, 28 allegations of physical and/or sexual abuse were reported to social work … Between early December 2001 and 24 February 2002, there were 16 separate contacts or referrals by the individuals themselves, members of their family or social work staff, expressing concerns. Each one of these events should have initiated decisive action, but none did."
Most disturbing of all, the report states:
"The repeated horrific sexual and physical abuse for which 3 men were convicted in 2002, could have been prevented had the department acted on the mounting evidence available over the previous two decades."
I could quote further such references from the report, but members will be able to read its full contents for themselves. As I said, the report is a damning verdict on a catalogue of repeated and significant failures.
The SWSI report and the separate Mental Welfare Commission report together make 42 key recommendations. The recommendations are directed at Scottish Borders Council, Borders NHS Board and Lothian and Borders police. They also make specific recommendations for the Scottish Executive to follow up.
The recommendations span many issues. Two of the SWSI recommendations are specific to the individuals in the case, but 21 of them are directed at Scottish Borders Council. The SWSI recommends that the council should: review all cases involving vulnerable adults; comply with the Scottish Social Services Council codes of practice; improve training for mental health officers; develop better risk assessment methods; improve case recording and review mechanisms; introduce random case monitoring processes; reform case transfer arrangements; and share information more effectively. The Mental Welfare Commission recommendations reflect all those critical issues.
In addition, the Scottish Executive is specifically recommended to continue our existing work of reforming, supporting and developing social work practice through: reviewing the role of the chief social work officer; making provision to record all abuse allegations in new database frameworks, which we are developing; auditing local guidelines to protect vulnerable adults; introducing a vulnerable adults bill; and reinforcing the need to comply with SSSC codes. We accept all the recommendations and we will take all the necessary steps to ensure that they are acted upon.
The social work services inspectorate report is based on a process that involved the trawling of files for the entire period during which the individuals involved had been known to the social work department. Inspectors also had access to other reports that Scottish Borders Council had commissioned as well as to staff disciplinary and training records and the transcripts of interviews with key staff that were made in the earlier investigations. A detailed chronology, drawing heavily on case notes and the wider evidence base, was produced as findings of fact, which were agreed with the agencies. The SWSI report is based on those findings of fact. The published report is an anonymised version of the findings of fact, which cannot be published because of the need to protect the identities of the victims and the details of what happened to them.
Yesterday, I met representatives of Scottish Borders Council, the chief constable of Lothian and Borders police and the chief executive and chair of Borders NHS Board. Scottish Borders Council and the other agencies have accepted without reservation the findings of fact and the conclusions and recommendations of the SWSI report. The purpose of my meeting with the council representatives in particular—and with the other agencies as well—was to impress upon them the extremely serious nature of the findings. I wanted absolute assurances that: first, they accepted the findings; secondly, they would take immediate steps to address the remaining needs of the victims; and, thirdly, they would take all necessary actions to ensure that such failings do not occur again. I can tell Parliament that I have received those assurances.
I will ensure that there is on-going liaison between my officials and Scottish Borders Council, and my colleagues will ensure that there is similar liaison between the Health Department and NHS Borders and between the Justice Department and the police. I have asked Scottish Borders Council to submit plans to the SWSI on how it will address the issues that are raised in the report. The SWSI will carry out a follow-up inspection to ensure that the action plan is fully implemented and that the necessary changes are brought about.
As members will be aware, a number of Scottish Borders Council's key officials have only recently been appointed. For example, the council has a comparatively new chief executive and it has an acting director of lifelong care, following the departure of the previous director. Scottish Borders Council must make some major changes to its culture and to the way in which it operates its services. Dedicated effort and clear political commitment will be required to bring that about. The council is fully aware of the challenges that it faces. It has started the necessary process of change by allocating additional resources and implementing, for example, the recommendations of the Bates report.
In the short term, the council still has a lot to do to support the individuals who were at the centre of the case and who have suffered so much. Those individuals are still extremely vulnerable, but they are making significant progress in their lives in new settings. In conducting our deliberations and in properly scrutinising the events, we in the Parliament must also protect those individuals from unnecessary exposure or hurt. I urge members not to refer to the case by the former label, as that is known to cause distress to the individual concerned.
Beyond the individuals who are involved in this case, Scottish Borders Council has a duty to ensure that no other individuals with similar learning difficulties are suffering as a consequence of systems or individual failings. It requires—and is undertaking—an immediate audit of cases to ensure that there is adequate protection and support for such individuals.
The findings and recommendations in the SWSI report that are directed at Scottish Borders Council and the police and health services are relevant to every other social work service, police force and health board in Scotland. Together with the Minister for Justice and the Minister for Health and Community Care, I will today write to every Scottish local authority, health board and chief constable to bring the report to their attention and to ensure that they ask themselves whether the same could be happening in their area. I will ask them to work together to audit their services for adults with learning disabilities, based on the recommendations of the SWSI and the Mental Welfare Commission for Scotland. Where that audit identifies areas that need attention, agencies should produce timetabled action plans identifying how all the issues will be addressed.
Parliament recently made clear its intention to raise the standards of social work practice. We have created the Scottish Social Services Council to register social workers and to require them to publish codes of practice that set out standards of conduct for social workers and social work employers. I have been deeply troubled and am deeply concerned by the fact that this report has revealed failings in both systems and individuals. I am very clear that I have a duty to act on those concerns as they relate both to systems and to the actions of individuals.
The proper way in which to deal with the matter is to refer the SWSI findings and conclusions to the Scottish Social Services Council. I expect the council to take them into account as it develops standards of registration over time and as it goes about its task of registering individual social workers. Parliament should be in no doubt about my intentions. I expect the Scottish Social Services Council to exercise its statutory duties and to use the evidence that we supply to it to decide whether an individual is failing to meet the required standards and so is not fit to be registered. That will enable any potential employer to know that they are unsuitable and will thereby protect the interests of vulnerable clients. Parliament or the public would not expect any less than that assurance from me.
Practising social work is one of the most demanding and complex tasks that we ask any group of professionals to carry out on our behalf. Today, as we speak in the chamber and deliberate on these matters, social workers the length and breadth of Scotland are confronting extraordinarily challenging circumstances. Many social workers, health staff and social work and health managers in the Scottish Borders and elsewhere are exercising sound judgment, assessing difficult situations, making the right interventions and improving the lives of vulnerable citizens. We will hear little or nothing of their good work on society's behalf.
However, when things go wrong, we have a duty to act, to learn the lessons and to ensure accountability. As the Executive and the Parliament, we also have a duty to ask ourselves critically whether we are doing everything that we can to be clear about what we expect of social work in the modern era. The Executive has decided that it is now time to take a more fundamental look at social work. As ministers and parliamentarians, we need to ask what task we are asking social work to do for our society in this ever-changing world. We need to be clear about what we expect in the early part of the 21st century, which is so different from the 1960s when social work as we know it today found its statutory basis. We need to be clear about where it fits in and how it relates to others in the complex landscape of public, voluntary and private agencies. We need to be clearer about the contribution that we want and need social work to make as we move through the early part of the century, in order to strengthen its contribution to our society.
As members know, we are already active on the agenda that I have set out. There are more social workers in Scotland than ever. We have introduced a new social work honours degree, set minimum standards for continuing professional development, run successful campaigns to attract new people into the sector and introduced a fast-track scheme for graduates to boost by a third the number of social workers qualifying over the next three years. However, it is clear that we need to go further—beyond what we are already doing. I know that there is an appetite for change and development within the sector. For example, Unison has recently written to my officials stressing the importance that it attaches to the task of identifying exactly what the social worker does.
I will return to Parliament before the summer recess to set out more fully the Executive's thinking on how we should progress consideration of these issues. In the meantime, it is important to take action now to improve services. Therefore, I am making immediate changes in the SWSI, which will now concentrate on inspection activity alone. Its former policy role will stay within the Scottish Executive Education Department, but the inspectorate will sit at arm's length from ministers, which reflects the arrangements that we put in place for schools inspection two years ago.
The reports published today also raise issues relevant to police, health, education and social work. One of the first tasks for the revamped SWSI will be to develop with other inspectorates and regulatory bodies a joint inspection of learning disability by the end of the year. That inspection will monitor the audits by the service providers that I mentioned.
I have emphasised the importance of the Scottish Social Services Council and the codes of practice in raising standards and protecting vulnerable people. We have already agreed to protect the social worker title under the Regulation of Care (Scotland) Act 2001. I now intend to take further action to strengthen the statutory basis of the codes of practice.
It is critical that agencies share and act on the right information. The presumption must be to share information, but too often that does not happen. We must challenge that approach, particularly when vulnerable children and, in this case, adults are involved. I will now ensure that the databases being developed by the Scottish Consortium for Learning Disability, in partnership with local authorities, include a field for abuse and neglect.
Malcolm Chisholm is also asking the Health Department to develop national guidelines to strengthen the protection of vulnerable adults. That will complement local guidelines recommended by the report, "The same as you? A review of services for people with learning disabilities".
We will also introduce legislation to complement the statutory measures that exist to protect vulnerable adults under the Adults with Incapacity (Scotland) Act 2000 and the Mental Health (Care and Treatment) (Scotland) Act 2003.
As I said in my opening remarks, the SWSI report reflects a damning catalogue of failings. As I read the report, I was not only profoundly moved and deeply affected by what happened to the individuals involved, but I became increasingly incredulous and angry that such things could be allowed to happen over such a prolonged period of time. I also became more and more committed and resolute in my determination to do anything that I can to bring about the changes that are undoubtedly necessary.
Everyone must deeply regret what has happened to the individuals involved, but apologising or regretting does not go anywhere near far enough. We need to take the actions that we have set out today to seek to ensure that we are doing all in our power to prevent a repeat. No one in this Parliament or more widely should doubt the steely determination of this Executive to ensure that widespread action and change flow from the report, which adds to all that we know from the past.
Today marks a watershed in how we need to think about social work. We will ensure that all the big questions are asked in our determination to ensure that social work can make a stronger contribution to meeting Scotland's modern needs.
We will take whatever actions are necessary to ensure—as far as it is humanly possible to do so—that Scotland's vulnerable adults are not let down in this way again.
Mr Peacock will now take questions. Members have an absolute right to scrutinise thoroughly the issues raised in the minister's statement, but in so doing they have an absolute responsibility to ensure that vulnerable people are not hurt further.
I thank the minister for the advance copy of the statement. I associate myself and my party with his comments about the appalling nature of the case.
The report makes appalling reading. The conclusion is that there has been total institutional failure by the social work department in Scottish Borders Council. However, total institutional failure is only a product of the failure of individuals within the institution. My questions are about that.
What will be done to address those individual failures? The report states that although Scottish Borders Council staff have not been identified in the report, they are named in the findings of fact and so are known to Scottish Borders Council. Responsibility for staff management, development and discipline rests with Scottish Borders Council as the employer. Obviously, the council has failed to take any action in that respect to date. The minister says in his statement that the Scottish Social Services Council has the role of deregistering individuals if they are found not to be worthy of being registered any longer. If any staff are found to merit being deregistered, will that lead to automatic disciplinary action on the part of Scottish Borders Council?
What about the senior managers who have either left or are in the process of negotiating retirement packages? Surely action must be taken against those individuals if they are named in the findings of fact. Will the minister assure us that that will be the case?
I thank Shona Robison for her questions and for the tone in which she asked them. I have taken very seriously indeed the question of the apparent individual failings that are revealed in the report. From where I sit, I see, like Shona Robison, that the failings involve not just the front-line case workers, but extend beyond those workers and relate to the supervision and proper management of front-line staff. That is exactly why I have taken the action that I have outlined.
Members must acknowledge, as I do, that I have no legal basis on which to intervene, given employment laws. Scottish Borders Council is the employer of the individuals concerned and it requires to take the decisions that it believes are right in the circumstances. Equally, I am required to take the decisions that I believe are right, which is what I have done. I believe that I have acted in the public interest by ensuring that all the information goes to the Scottish Social Services Council, for it to take account of as it goes about registering social workers. As I indicated in my statement, I expect it to take seriously that information as a matter of priority and to take any action that it judges appropriate—it is in the right position to judge that—in relation to those individuals, whether they are front-line social workers or members of management staff.
Given employment law, the question whether there will be automatic disciplinary action is, again, a matter for Scottish Borders Council to determine in the light of what the Scottish Social Services Council says—if it says anything—about any individual who is still in the system. Scottish Borders Council will have to take its own advice and decisions on that. Let us be absolutely clear that my intention in taking the course of action that I have outlined, which I think is unprecedented—although it is still early days in the life of the Scottish Social Services Council—is to ensure that the questions that Shona Robison, I and other members are asking are properly taken account of in the regulatory framework that we have set up and that appropriate action is taken to ensure that people who are not fit to practise social work will not do so.
I welcome the minister's full statement and the measured way in which he has approached an extremely distressing and disturbing subject. Does he accept the principle that it is desirable that victims should have privacy for their peace of mind so that they can rebuild their lives?
Secondly, at a time when the social work service is in great need of more social workers, surely well-thought-out guidance from the minister on best practice in such difficult and sensitive matters would provide an invaluable way forward.
Finally, in order to draw a line under this matter—this echoes what Shona Robison has said—will the minister make the necessary inquiries to make certain that those involved in serious malpractice are not currently employed by social work departments in Scotland, whose standards are necessarily high?
On the latter point, I covered most of what needed to be covered in my answer to Shona Robison's question. Again, let me be clear that the Executive and then the Parliament have taken the necessary steps to put in place the regulatory frameworks to ensure that only those who are fit to practise are allowed to practise. As part of rolling out the process, we must do more to protect titles and to ensure that people who call themselves social workers are social workers and have met the required standards. Work is in hand to ensure that that happens.
On Lord James Douglas-Hamilton's point about guidance, clarity and best practice, the purpose of carrying out the inspections is to ensure that we see in detail what has happened and where practice has fallen down, that we understand the reason why that happened and that we take the necessary action to rectify the situation. That implies that there should be clear guidance and a clear understanding from everyone in the profession and more widely of what is required and expected. I assure members that that is part of the work of the Scottish Social Services Council and that further work will be carried out to ensure that we continue to provide clarity.
On the first point, Lord James Douglas-Hamilton is absolutely right: we have an absolute duty to protect the young people who are now adults who are involved in the situation. They have been failed dramatically over their lives and the least that we can do is to ensure that the remainder of their lives is an improvement on the start of their lives.
I thank the minister for his full statement in response to a professional and thorough report. The report on the repeated failure of the state to carry out its duty to care and protect the most vulnerable people in society is deeply disturbing.
I met the leaders of Scottish Borders Council and NHS Borders last week to ensure that they accepted all the conclusions in the then pending report and that they would ensure that their procedures were in place and that their staff knew their responsibilities. I also wanted to ensure that the most senior officials of the council, the health service and the police would meet regularly and work together at the highest level.
Does the minister agree that, in responding to the report, it is important to consider the care that is currently provided for the victims at the centre of the case, who are struggling to rebuild their lives in the face of increasingly lurid press reporting and, at times, parliamentary exchanges? Does he agree that responding to the report in a firm way and recommending national actions and legislative changes do not mask my nor others' absolute determination to see the end of bad practice and to identify and correct failings in order to care for the most vulnerable adults in our society?
I would be interested to know when the minister expects legislative proposals to be introduced in the Parliament. Does he agree that it is only then that we will begin to rebuild trust and deliver what we owe to the victims, the hard-working and dedicated social work staff, the people of the Borders and all vulnerable people in Scotland?
Jeremy Purvis is correct to say that we owe it to those individuals to ensure that we put in place the legislative framework to make the necessary changes to regulations and practice and to address these issues. In ensuring that we are doing the right thing by the individuals concerned, we can perhaps spare others the suffering that they have endured. As members will be aware, we are considering the timing of such legislation, and our intentions will be announced in due course once we have worked out fully what we want to cover and what the right legislative vehicles are. We are determined to make the changes that are necessary to protect vulnerable adults in the future.
Jeremy Purvis is also correct to point out that the current care of the individuals who are involved in the present case is a priority that Scottish Borders Council is and should be looking at. The report picks up comparatively recent instances of independent advocacy not being available to those people and certain circumstances in which what ought to happen under the guardianship provisions has not happened in the recent past. I raised those issues with Scottish Borders Council yesterday and it has satisfied me that it has now acted on those matters and that the necessary provisions are in place. It has also assured me that it takes very seriously the need to make restitution to the individuals concerned in whatever way it can and to ensure that their care is properly established and looked after into the future.
Jeremy Purvis is also correct to say that, in the light of this case, we need to ensure in every part of Scotland, in particular the Borders, that the police, the health service and the local authority are working closely together. When I met all three at a joint meeting yesterday, I was convinced by their clear commitment to work together, to take effective action and to address the problems that have arisen. However, they have a serious amount of work to do between them. We will ensure that that work is followed up and we will inspect Scottish Borders Council again to ensure that the necessary actions have been taken.
Like other members, I am saddened and shocked by the minister's statement. It is clear that there has been a catastrophic breakdown in social work practice over several years, not only in Scottish Borders Council, but in the preceding Borders Regional Council and possibly even in the former county council.
I am confident that my former colleagues who remain in social work will welcome the minister's intention to launch a thorough review of the lessons that can be learned not only by Scottish Borders Council but by every local authority in Scotland. We need a fundamental review of what exactly we expect from social workers and what exactly we believe is the role of social work in the 21st century. Although I welcome that, I ask the minister to ensure that the review is carried out with the sole intention of ensuring that our social work services—whether for vulnerable children, for vulnerable adults or for older people—are of the highest standard and that staff who deliver the services know that they are being properly supported in carrying out what is often a difficult task. I also ask him to ensure that the action plan that has been announced today will lead to the general public having the fullest confidence in those staff and the task that they carry out.
Scott Barrie has many years of experience as a professional in this field and I am grateful for the comments that he made and for the welcome that he gave to our asking ourselves fundamental questions about the social work service. When I was reading the report and the background papers, I asked myself how many more times ministers would be in the position of reading such material and finding exactly the same pattern of difficulties, albeit in different parts of Scotland and with different individual circumstances.
I have not concluded that we have to examine social work by attacking it in any way. I want to examine the issues in a positive light. In this part of this century, we politicians have an obligation to reflect seriously on what we ask social workers to do in our name. I made a point of saying in my statement that I am acutely conscious that there are social workers who are doing an extraordinarily complex and difficult job, which does not get the recognition that it requires. Most of the time, social work works extremely well to the benefit of individuals. Equally, as we have seen in this case, when it goes wrong, questions arise as to where else it might be going wrong that we have not yet found out about.
We must ask ourselves fundamental questions, but I want to do so in a positive spirit and in a way that will strengthen the contribution of social work to Scotland in the future. I want to do exactly what Scott Barrie said: to ensure that the highest standards apply to social work, that the public gain the confidence that such standards exist and are being applied and that we increase confidence in our social work services in future.
I congratulate the minister on the presentation that he made to us about a very difficult situation. I applaud his commitment to protecting the privacy of the individuals and to making sure that the same thing never happens again either in the Borders or in any other part of Scotland. I welcome the report.
I support Scott Barrie's plea that as much support as possible should be given to social work in Scotland. We have had many discussions about social work and the lack of support for it, and there are still lessons to be learned.
I noted the commendable decision of the Minister for Education and Young People—along with the Minister for Justice and the Minister for Health and Community Care—to write to every Scottish local authority, health board and chief constable to draw the report to their attention and ask them to ask themselves whether what the report describes could happen in their areas, and to work together with their services for adults with learning disabilities. Would anything be gained by taking that one step further? The minister will ask those agencies to report back and if their audit identifies anything that needs attention, those agencies should produce timetabled action plans. Will he require them to report back as soon as possible on the levels of compliance with present codes of conduct? That might be sensible.
I thank Robin Harper for his comments and the tone in which he made them. I reiterate the point that I made to Scott Barrie; as we go on, I want to make sure that not only are we seen to be supporting social work but we are actually supporting it in its difficult task, while not hiding from the difficult questions that we have to ask of ourselves and more widely in that process. We have to do that if we are going to do justice to the social work profession in the future, and to the Scottish population.
Robin Harper made a point about requiring every local authority to submit plans. I have discussed with my officials who are dealing with these matters the need to make sure that we monitor what is going on across Scotland. We are strengthening the social work services inspectorate to give us the capacity to do that and to examine services for those with learning disabilities in a multidisciplinary way. We expect those services to be vastly improved by the end of the year and to be operating an inspection process. That will help us to do much more of the monitoring that we require to do and, which is more important in the long term, to share good practice and roll it out through the work of the inspectorate and the many other institutions and agencies that exist to improve the quality of social work. I assure members that we will seek to do that.
I, too, welcome the report's publication, which was delayed, and the minister's statement. The delayed publication must have added to the misery of the young lady who is at the centre of the report—I am all too aware that she is a real person—and, indeed, must have affected social workers throughout Scotland, who did not deserve to be blighted by some bad eggs. I also welcome the audit of the guidelines for the protection of vulnerable adults. I first called for that step in October 2002 and it is long overdue.
I want to ask the minister, in a constructive manner, three particular questions on whistleblowing. What the minister said has exonerated the whistleblowers, who did not feel that they could go through the local authority's systems. First, what steps will be taken to ensure that whistleblowers are not prosecuted or persecuted—overtly or covertly—when real issues come to light, wherever that may be? I know that the review of the cases involving vulnerable adults is under way and that Scottish Borders Council and the new acting deputy head of social work are seriously determined to cleanse the system. Secondly, will the minister confirm that the inspectorate will have an active role in assisting and examining the review of all the cases? One hates to think about it, but we do not want the particular case involving the young lady to be the tip of a horrible iceberg. Thirdly, does the minister share my concerns that senior managers who might be named in the report as being culpable—I have not had the opportunity to read the report thoroughly because I have just received it—might already have negotiated early-retirement packages and might walk off scot-free?
I will answer those questions in the order in which they were asked. Provisions for whistleblowers are much more established now in our society than they have ever been. Whistleblowing is encouraged when people feel that things are going wrong. There are whistleblowing provisions for how government and other public agencies operate. I do not expect something specific about learning disabilities to flow from the issues that we are discussing, which are more broadly covered across the whole of the public sector and beyond.
On the review of cases and the role of the social work services inspectorate, I indicated in my statement that I want continuous dialogue between my department and Scottish Borders Council—and between the Justice Department and the police and between the Health Department and the health board—to ensure that we keep an eye on what is happening and act as a reference point for expertise on how the processes ought to be undertaken, and ensure that we are satisfied by that. I also indicated that there will be a follow-up inspection to ensure that all that is implemented effectively.
On individuals who might have left Scottish Borders Council, I should indicate that no members of staff are named in the report that was published today. However, all the information that lies behind the report will be forwarded to the Scottish Social Services Council in the way that I described and for the purposes that I described. On the question of anyone who has left Scottish Borders Council, I reiterate that the council is responsible for that matter and that it must be accountable locally for that. I have done today what I believe to be right, given the interests that I protect. I have taken what I believe to be the right action in the public interest, to protect people in the future.
I, too, thank the minister for the clarity and robustness of his statement. I note that the statement confirmed that the report concludes that a number of other individuals were, sadly, the subject of neglect, abuse and exploitation. Is that the subject of on-going police inquiries? If so, is it the intention of the minister or of his colleague the Lord Advocate to come to the chamber at some future point to report further on that aspect?
The report of the findings of fact has been passed to the Lord Advocate and he, in turn, has instructed the procurator fiscal to consider whether any further allegations of criminality should be investigated.
I welcome the part of the report that refers to the changes in the role of the social work services inspectorate, which is important. A number of individual and system issues come out of the report. One might say that the price of success is eternal vigilance. Is there a need for more probing monitoring of social work department records? From the report's tone, it is clear that there was sufficient record keeping. Will the minister have talks through his officials with the inspectorate and the Scottish Social Services Council to identify ways in which the inspection regime can be made more effective in order to discover early on issues that would be of concern to the public not just in Scottish Borders Council but wherever they might appear?
I thank Robert Brown for welcoming the changes in the social work services inspectorate. He has raised the issue of probing and monitoring records, and that is one of the clear failings in the case in question. Indeed, one of the reasons for not naming members of staff in the report is that the record keeping in the past has at times been so inadequate that it is not possible to tell exactly who was involved, so it would be invidious to name some people and not others in those circumstances. That is only one reason for the decision not to name members of staff.
On Robert Brown's wider point about the need to probe records, there are several issues that we need to address. First, one of the failings to emerge from this report, which we have also seen in other reports, is the lack of quality assurance processes in the operation of the profession in a wide sense. That is what we need to tackle first and foremost. We require quality assurance processes, locally monitored by local managers and supervisors, to ensure that things are happening. One of the recommendations of the inspectorate is that there ought to be random looks at case files and case reporting to ensure that things are being done properly. That is only one aspect of the much wider work that is required.
Equally, I assure Robert Brown that, in all the things that we want to examine and improve in relation to social work, those aspects are at the centre of how we will help to bring about improvement. It is interesting to compare current social work legislation with other recent legislation that the Parliament has passed. For example, the Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968 is now 30-odd years old, and its origin is even older than that. By contrast, the Standards in Scotland's Schools etc Act 2000 sets out a purpose for education and clearly states the ambition and clarity of purpose of education—in that case, to fulfil the potential of individual young people. It then goes on to talk about the concept of continuous improvement and sets up structures to look at that, with inspection and reporting mechanisms.
We need to consider that type of framework for social work legislation in this century, so that we can make it clear to social workers what it is that we expect of them. In turn, that will allow them to prioritise decision making. We need to be equally clear about the improvement and monitoring processes and about the relationships and accountabilities between the social work profession and the Parliament. Those are all questions that we need to ask ourselves seriously to bring about the improvements that Robert Brown has mentioned.