Children’s services could be put under the microscope again.

Policy and Reform Minister Chris Thomas has revealed plans to commission an independent inspection of the services, on top of a ’desktop review’ already scheduled.

The idea is confirmed in government’s Combined Action Plan for Children and Young People. It has been published by the Council of Ministers’ social policy and children subcommittee, which is chaired by Mr Thomas.

It contains a progress report on a number of actions that were been called for in recent years.

Mr Thomas said: ’At this juncture, the combined action plan illustrates how far we have come, yet the journey goes on - our commitment to continual improvement of services for our children and young people remains steadfast. To that effect, the committee has engaged the Scottish Care Inspectorate for a desktop review of the plan to date.’

He added: ’The committee considers that a new independent external inspection of children’s services should also be commissioned.

’This would be the first since 2016 and would provide a comprehensive reassessment of services as they are today, noting improvements and highlighting any areas for further attention. This is currently being explored.’

A first version of the combined action plan was placed before Tynwald last year, after three separate action plans were combined.

The aim was to address key areas including improvements in the immediate response to children who may be at risk of abuse or neglect.

Actions included enhancing early intervention and support for children, young people and their families were, work on respect of staff performance, training, complaints and partnerships with parents.

The combined plan was first pulled together following the 2016 Care Inspectorate of Scotland progress review into services for children and young people in the Isle of Man, as well as an investigation into the management of case files and treatment of services users of the children and families services section of the Department of Health and Social Care, and a Social Affairs Policy Review Committee report into the children and families services.

The latest report, which goes before Tynwald today, admits recruitment of social workers for the children and families sector remains a ’challenge’, but says a successful postgraduate training scheme is underway, with bursaries offered to island students who return when qualified. It also says a new structure for governance and accountability of cross-government children’s services is ’taking shape’.