A damning report into adult support services in Dundee has found vulnerable individuals were put at risk by failures to carry out key processes.
The joint inspection of adult support and protection across six local partnerships, the first of its kind in Scotland, found services in Dundee had not done enough work to identify and measure outcomes for adults at risk of harm.
It described a “critical” need for improvement after discovering 43% of at-risk adults had not undergone a risk assessment, stating this was “not conducive to their safety”.
The report found deficiencies in the partnership’s adult protection processes, which had also previously been exposed during internal audits, “had the clear potential to have an adverse impact on the outcomes for adults at risk of harm”.
Police focus groups also highlighted that frontline officers had a lack of understanding of consent, capacity and the three-point test – designed to establish whether an individual is at risk.
The services work with people aged 16 or over who are unable to safeguard their own well-being, property, rights or other interests; are at risk of harm; or are vulnerable because they are affected by disability, mental disorder, illness or physical or mental infirmity.
The partnership scraped an “adequate” rating overall but only because inspectors found strengths across the multi-agency group “just outweigh weaknesses”.
The report noted that in 27% of cases there had been evidence of financial harm to the individual, while more than half of those involved sums exceeding £1,000.
Staff were commended for acting to stop the abuse in 77% of the cases, with four out of five interventions described as “effective”.
Experts concluded that despite the issues, individuals subject to adult support and protection were “generally safe and protected” in Dundee.
However, the report noted that internal audits had discovered evidence to support decision-making was often missing from files.
Care Inspectorate chief executive Karen Reid hoped the findings would “help all partnerships across Scotland reflect on their strengths and areas where they can improve.”
She said: “Protecting people who are at risk of harm is everyone’s concern, and people want to know how well services work together to keep people safe.
“Much scrutiny up to now has focused on efforts to protect children at risk of harm in our communities, but it is vital that we also understand how well partnerships protect adults who are at risk.”
According to the report, leaders within the Dundee partnership “accepted all of the findings of our joint inspection and recognised that they needed to stimulate improvement in a number of critical domains”.
Dundee adult support and protection committee convener Elaine Torrance said inspectors had acknowledged positive local leadership and a strong level of knowledge among staff.
However, she conceded there was “room from improvement identified, especially around processes and recording”.
She said: “We will be developing an action plan to address the issues that have been raised and this will be closely monitored during its implementation.
“Key stakeholders will also be involved in this process, and we will be looking for feedback from service users.”
