Children's Day Care Services: the vital statistics

The findings of the Care Commission’s inspection of children's Day Care Services have been revealed.

As part of its remit to ensure that care service providers meet the Scottish Government's National Care Standards and strive to improve the quality of care they provide, the Care Commission has started to grade children’s Day Care Services from 1 April 2008.

At each inspection, the Care Commission grades the service according to four themes - quality of care and support, quality of environment, quality of staffing and quality of management and leadership.

Inspections

The Care Commission conducted 2273 inspections of children's Day Care Services Children's Day Care Services from April 2008 to April 2009. Inspections of children's Day Care services conducted by the Care Commission in the 12 months to 1 April 2009 of 2273 Day Care Services found that services scored more highly for the quality of care and support provided compared to any other criteria, with a high proportion of services achieving the top grades of 5 (very good) and 6 (excellent).

Services were rated less highly for the quality of environment and staffing. Just 2% of services inspected were allocated a Grade 6 (excellent) and 37% a Grade 5 (very good) for the quality of environment offered. A fairly high number of settings, ie 42%, scored a Grade 4 (good) and 15% a Grade 3 (adequate). The distribution of grades was broadly similar for the quality of staffing provided. Services were awarded the highest proportions of grades 1 (unsatisfactory), 2 (weak) and 3 (adequate) for the quality of management and leadership.

Findings

'We are particularly interested in inspections where services have only scored grades 1 or 2 for all themes (the poorer performers) and where they have scored only Grades 5 or 6 for all themes (the higher performers),' said Bryan Livingstone, Development Manager, Children's Services. 'We have found that the quality of day care of children's services is generally good, with around 80% of services achieving Grades 4 or above at inspection for each theme. But almost one in four day care of children services scored a 5 or 6 in all of the themes.'

'In the private sector only 17% of the services achieved Grades 5 or 6 for all themes and 4% a Grade 1 or 2 compared to the same proportion of services in the voluntary sector who achieved Grades 5 or 6, but only 2% scored 1 or 2 in all themes,' said Bryan. 'More than one in three local authority services scored Grades 5 or 6 across the board.'

As Bryan explains, the Care Commission is committed to supporting practitioners to improve the standards of care provided: 'The Care Commission will continue to work with providers to improve services. We are developing a page on our website, which will give examples of innovative practice and services. The intention is that it will give ideas that providers may wish to adapt and introduce into their own services.'