The Care Inspectorate report also found some staff felt that decisions and actions by senior leaders were not always clearly communicated
16:34, 14 Jan 2026
Councillors will consider a response to the report at a committee meeting next week(Image: )
An inspection of Edinburgh Council’s children’s social work leadership team has found the service lacks an ‘environment of trust’ among staff.
The Care Inspectorate report detailed that some staff felt reports of poor social work practice were not being listened to or responded to correctly.
It also found that some staff lacked trust in the senior leadership of the service, and many felt decisions and actions by its senior leaders were not clearly communicated.
SNP education, children and families spokesperson, councillor Euan Hyslop, said ‘immediate and decisive’ action was needed by the administration to address the issues raised by the report.
Education, children and families convener and Labour councillor James Dalgleish said he welcomed the inspectorate’s scrutiny, and that the council was fully committed to taking on its findings.
He added that the report ‘demonstrates the journey of improvement’ the council’s children’s services team has gone through, as well as places where the council ‘must continue to improve’.
A new senior leadership team was recently assembled, and has worked to improve how the service is administered.
The inspectorate did find progress was being made in service leadership, and that work was clearly underway to improve things further.
And, it found that ‘promising improvements’ in the running of the service had been made, which had contributed to positive improvements for children and young people.
Further, it added that a ‘growing culture of trust and respect’ had been seen among staff members and line managers within the service.
However, the report stated that more work was needed to ensure ‘robust and safe’ delivery of care for children and young people.
Staff from the Care Inspectorate will now provide ‘ongoing support’ to children’s social care bosses to ensure improvements are made.
The inspection came at the request of Scotland’s children and young people’s minister over several ‘highly publicised’ events in Edinburgh in recent years.
Cllr Hyslop said: “The recent Care Inspectorate report has highlighted multiple leadership failures within Edinburgh’s children’s social work services, including inconsistent senior leadership, ineffective governance and poor staff engagement.
“It’s clear that the Labour administration must take immediate and decisive action to address these serious concerns and ensure that our children and families receive the support they deserve.
“We will be closely monitoring their response and hold them accountable for the necessary improvements.”
Inspectors spoke to 65 people involved in the service, including councillors, senior leaders and managers, and sent surveys to line staff and managers, hearing back from 64% of them.
In the report, inspectors stressed that their work only looked at the leadership of the service, not how well it was doing at meeting the needs of children, young people and families.
From the survey work, they found that just over a third of staff felt there was a ‘culture of openness and transparency’ in the city’s children’s social work services.
Most employees said they felt confident about how to raise a concern about poor practice by people involved in delivering children’s social work services.
However, less than half of those who actually did raise concerns were confident that they were listened to, and that appropriate action was taken.
The report also added that there was a ‘pervasive view’ among some staff that it was not safe to question or challenge some decisions made by senior leadership in the service.
Some also said they felt unsafe using a whistleblowing service launched in 2024, and feared that the process was not confidential.
The whistleblowing service is designed to be confidential and independent, and is operated by a third party.
Inspectors further found that scrutiny of the service by councillors had struggled, with issues involving it having lesser prominence in committee agendas than other items.
The report stated that elected members would ‘inevitably’ have to prioritise items requiring decisions during a meeting.
A separate report will be put to councillors at next week’s education, children and families committee meeting, spelling out the council’s position on the inspection and next steps the service plans to take if councillors give their sign-off.
It states that the lack of free-response fields in the inspectorate’s survey meant it had ‘not been possible to get the context’ as to why staff completed it in the way they did.
It adds that city bosses will engage with employees to understand staff members’ responses to the survey.
Further, senior leadership will ‘prioritise engagement with staff’ to ensure views are ‘heard, listened to and acted upon’.
Additionally, the council’s education, children and families committee would hear future reports on children’s services in one block on the agenda.
The report states this would ‘support more robust scrutiny’ of that area of work, and that other ways of ensuring adequate time for scrutiny at meetings would be explored.
Cllr Dalgleish said: “I welcome the external scrutiny and feedback provided in the inspection report. It demonstrates the journey of improvement already underway in our Children’s Services, displaying where we’ve made progress and highlighting areas most in need of our attention.
“It is positive to see that the report recognises improvements made by our new senior leadership team, in relation to our governance structures, scrutiny and quality assurance frameworks, showing where we are doing well to support our children, and also where we must continue to improve.
“We’re fully committed to taking on board the findings outlined and will work closely with the Care Inspectorate to develop an action plan – focusing, as ever, on the positive impact we can make on the lives of the children, young people and families we work with.”
The next Education, Children and Families committee meeting will be on Thursday, January 22, which you can view here.