Child Protection Guidance 2021

Part 3: Identifying and responding to concerns about children 95 National Guidance for Child Protection in Scotland 2021 Version 1.0 September 2021 Quality assurance and review of IRDs 3.44 Local areas should ensure that quality control systems are in place to support consistent standards, recognition of patterns in practice or context of concerns, and improvement. Quality assurance would usually be achieved through: • regular reviews of IRDs by senior representatives of core agencies • where parallel processes are set up for categories of risk, (e.g. in relation to ‘screening’ apparently high risk situations pre-birth), then they should be no less robust in terms of information sharing, recording, authority of decision-making and quality assurance • a vehicle for secure electronic sharing of the IRD Record between core agencies promotes effective and consistent practice; and makes review, quality assurance and analysis of trends feasible Interface with other processes 3.45 Children and young people who are believed to have harmed others may also require co‑ordinated information sharing and decision-making as indicated in the flow chart in this section and outlined in Part 4 of this Guidance. They may also have experienced abuse. Investigative processes must safeguard and protect their wellbeing as a primary consideration. IRDs are the lynchpin of effective processes when concerns arise about children who have caused serious harm to others. National Guidance on Care and Risk Management and Ministerial and Operational Guidance on the Age of Criminal Responsibility (Scotland) Act 2019 will both be published in 2021. 3.46 Reports to Child Protection Committees should consider integration of reporting on IRD in order to inform improvement through training, management and strategic improvements to systems and practice. 3.47 A practice insight on this topic has been drafted to illustrate and explain key practice considerations, offer a resource, prompt reflection and signpost selected sources. It can be found in the Practice Insights supporting document alongside this Guidance.