Perth and Kinross Adult Protection Committee Annual Report 2024-25
Perth and Kinross Council · 14 January 2026
Back to Perth and Kinross Council — 14 January 2026 and its agenda
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Our vision is a Perth and Kinross where everyone can live life well, free from poverty and inequality ___________________________________________________________________ Committee or Board: Perth and Kinross Council Date of Meeting: 14 January 2026 Report Title: Perth and Kinross Adult Protection Committee Annual Report 2024 - 2025 Report Number: 26/14 Report Author: Iain Wilkie, Inter-agency Adult Protection Coordinator (FBSCommittee@pkc.gov.uk) Organisational Lead: Arun Singh, Strategic Lead – Children Families and Justice, and Chief Social Work Officer ___________________________________________________________________ 1. Purpose 1.1 The Annual Report 2024 - 2025 (Appendix 1) (from here on referred to as ‘the report’) provides a comprehensive overview and analysis of Adult Support and Protection (ASP) activity in the reporting year from April 2024 to March 2025. It provides assurance that the protection and welfare of vulnerable and at-risk adults remain a strategic and operational priority. 1.2 The report shows the pressures arising from changing demand for services and our commitment to learning how the often-complex factors can leave an adult at risk of harm. It also demonstrates that this has been managed effectively by prioritising resources and ensuring that there are sufficient skilled social workers to respond timeously and effectively. This will continue to be monitored closely. 1.3 As we move forward, our cycle of audit work demonstrates that we continue to make key improvements and that our multi-agency arrangements continue to be effective in safeguarding adults considered to be at risk of harm. 1.4 Sections 1. Purpose 2. Recommendations 3. Background/Context 4. Main Issues 5. Key Themes and Assurances
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6. Continuous Improvement 7. Conclusion 8. Impact Value Assessment 9. Appendices 2. Recommendations It is recommended that Council: 2.1 Notes the wide range of work being carried out by Perth and Kinross Adult Protection Committee (APC) and partner agencies throughout the reporting period from April 2024 to March 2025 to safeguard adults considered to be at risk of harm. 2.2 Endorses the contents of the APC Annual Report 2024 - 2025 (Appendix 1). 3. Background/Context 3.1 The Perth and Kinross APC, in compliance with Scottish Government guidance, publishes biennial reports. As part of the APCs ongoing commitment to a cycle of quality assurance and improvement, annual reports rather than biennial reports are prepared. 3.2 The Perth and Kinross APC Biennial Report 2022 - 2024 (Report No. 24/349 refers) was shared with elected members, the Perth and Kinross Integrated Joint Board (IJB) and the Protecting People Chief Officers Group (PPCOG) in 2023/24. It was also shared with different strategic Health and Social Care Partnership (HSCP) and health governance groups. In order to provide the same levels of strategic scrutiny and oversight, this annual report is also shared with Perth and Kinross Council (PKC) and HSCP strategic groups. 3.3 The report describes the APC’s achievements within this reporting twelve- month period from April 2024 to March 2025. It highlights key strengths and areas for improvement. It confirms that the APC continues to place a strong emphasis on self-evaluation, audit and improvement, and has prepared a programme of evidence-based improvement work for 2025/26 and beyond. 3.4 The report was approved at the APC on 5 September 2025 and at the PPCOG on 17 September 2025. The APC Annual Report 2024-2025 was endorsed by the IJB on 18 December 2025. 4. Main Issues 4.1 On page 7 of the report, a summary infographic of adult protection activity throughout 2024/25 is provided and gives some high-level insight into our ASP activity in the 12-month period from April 2024 to March 2025.
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4.2 Page 11 of the report highlights how the number of qualified council officers (someone who is a qualified social worker and has completed both post graduate social work experience and undertaken the council officer training programme) has increased by 35% between January 2021 and January 2025. A further six social workers are in the process of undertaking the council officer training programme in 2025. This has been achieved through ongoing workforce planning and continued investing in enhanced social work training and development opportunities. The number of trained and available council officers is sufficient to meet current ASP demand. 4.3 In this reporting period, April 2024 to March 2025, we have seen a similar level of overall adult protection concerns received compared to previous years, albeit with some variation. Adult protection referrals continue to be received from a wide range of sources. The main three sources of referrals continue to come from Police Scotland, NHS Tayside, social work and social care. 4.4 Page 15 of the report refers to an increase in our referrals from our health colleagues at NHS Tayside. This demonstrates the value of our NHS Tayside Adult Protection Team supporting and encouraging health staff to recognise and report harm. We also see an increase in referrals from family, friends and self-referrals by those who contact social work concerned about the risk of harm that they believe that they are at. The rise in these particular referrals coincides with our increased ASP public campaigning using the PKC social media and advertising sites. Our campaigning raises awareness about what might constitute an adult being at risk of harm and what to do about it. 4.5 The age profile of people referred due to adult protection concerns shows that older adults are most likely to give cause for concern. As with previous years, vulnerability factors include infirmity and frailty due to old age, mental health, physical disability, and learning disability. 4.6 Page 19 of the report refers to how we see a rise in ASP activity for those aged between 40 and 64. This reflects a shift in thinking about how trauma can lead to an inability to safeguard, including using the Adult Support and Protection (Scotland) Act 2007 (the Act) for those where there is coercive control, undue pressure, and those who may experience addiction or hoarding behaviours. As stated previously, this can be an ethically challenging area of work where the right to choice, and what is considered an inability to safeguard, is not easily defined. We continue to work alongside our public protection partners to explore and support practitioners in this complex area. 4.7 Harm is most likely to occur within a home setting, either the person’s own home or within a care home setting. Incidents of harm in care home settings are often found to relate to harm between care home residents, at the low end of severity.
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4.8 The most prevalent types of harm remain relatively consistent, with physical harm, financial harm, neglect, self-harm, and psychological harm the most reported, with many investigations involving multiple types of harm. 4.9 Page 21 of the report refers to our use of Large-Scale Investigations (LSI) to mitigate harm in a regulated service (care home, care at home, hospital setting). The ASP lead officer will lead a multi-agency review of our LSI process in 2025/26. 4.10 Our use of the Act, from April to September 2025 remains relatively consistent with the data for previous reporting years. Our audit work and our commitment to self-evaluation and improvement demonstrates how we are using the Act to safeguard adults at risk of harm and how we are strengthening our multi-agency approach to keeping adults safe, particularly where complexity exists. 5. Key Themes and Assurances 5.1 Page 22 of the report refers to how we continue to strengthen our support to the care home sector and where the interface between the APC, the Care Home Operational Group and the strategic leadership from the HSCP exists. The report highlights the importance of data to inform service redesign, with page 31 referring to how the principles of early intervention and prevention has led to the implementation of a mental health triage pathway. This also embraces the principles, values and the spirit of the Act itself by getting the right support from the right people at the right time using the Getting it Right for Everyone (GIRFE) approach. GIRFE is about providing a more personalised way to access help and support when it is needed. 5.2 Page 26 of the report highlights how the findings from our self-evaluation work and the implementation of the new social work recording system, MOSAIC, has offered the opportunity to revise our ASP assessment framework. It is now more person centred, gives greater focus to our ASP activity being more multi-agency, gives greater prominence to the role of the unpaid carer and how safe the adult and their unpaid carer feels after the ASP episode. 5.3 The APC and HSCP are fully committed to self-evaluation, audit, quality assurance, review, and listening to the views of lived experience, to delivering confident and competent support to those adults considered to be at risk. The findings from this work informs the APC Improvement Plan for 2024/26 and beyond. 5.4 Page 24 of the report refers to our commitment to qualitative and quantitative audits to inform our improvement work. From April 2024 to March 2025, the APC has conducted or contributed to the following evaluation activity: • Multi-agency Audit 2024; • Inter-agency Referral Discussion Audit 2024; and
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• A thematic review of how we support adults, and their unpaid carers, to attend an ASP case conference. 5.5 Page 26 of the report notes how the Perth and Kinross APC has been invited to participate in several national initiatives around supported self-evaluation and wider joint inspection activity. 5.6 Our involvement in shared improvement work, both at a Tayside and a national level, gives the APC the opportunity to help shape national guidance and use this relationship, and the learning from it, to inform and improve how we keep adults at risk of harm, to be safe in Perth and Kinross. 5.7 Page 28 of the report highlights how supporting adults at risk of harm is not seen in isolation but as part of a wider and coordinated public protection approach to safeguarding. Page 29 of the report highlights examples of ASP and public protection cross cutting themes and the work that exists to support them. 5.8 Page 30 of the report highlights how the APC is an active partner in an innovative research programme, supported by the Royal College of Psychology, to look at how we approach and seek to safeguard where risk is complex. This research will continue into 2026. 5.9 Page 32 of the report highlights our commitment and our investment to learning and development. From raising awareness of ASP to front line practitioners across all sector areas, through to the delivery of specialised and specific council officer training for experienced social workers. 5.10 Page 37 refers to what the APC sees as key areas for improvement throughout 2025 and beyond. This includes safeguarding the older adult, strengthening our public protection approach, supporting adults and their unpaid carers to remain as involved in the ASP process as possible, developing reliable and relevant data to support our self-evaluation work and to strengthening our multi-agency approach to harm. 6. Continuous Improvement 6.1 On 25 April 2025, the APC approved the APC Improvement Plan for 2025/26, giving a particular focus on: • Strengthening a public partnership approach to safeguarding including violence against women, financial harm, those who experience addiction, mental ill-health, and suicide prevention; • Working alongside partners to ensure that our approach to safeguarding the older adult is coordinated; • Continuing to give priority focus on young people and adults in transition between services and securing improvements in the multi-agency, coordinated response;
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• Building on our multi-agency approach to delivering ASP in Perth and Kinross; • Improving how we encourage and support adults and their unpaid carers to remain fully engaged in the ASP episode; • Developing a robust multi-agency data set to inform planning, manage workload efficiently, target resources on key issues, to inform improvements to practice, and to demonstrate outcomes; and • Improving our use of chronologies to identify patterns of behaviour and escalating risks. 7. Conclusion 7.1 The report provides a comprehensive overview and analysis of ASP activity this reporting year from April 2024 to March 2025. It provides assurance that the protection and welfare of vulnerable and at-risk adults remains a strategic and operational priority. 7.2 The report clearly shows the pressures arising from increasing and changing demand. It also demonstrates that this has been managed effectively by prioritising resources and ensuring that there are sufficiently skilled social workers to respond timeously and effectively. This will continue to be monitored closely. 7.3 As we move forward, our cycle of audit work demonstrates that we continue to make key improvements and that our multi-agency arrangements continue to be effective in safeguarding adults considered to be at risk of harm. 8. Impact Value Assessment 8.1 This report has been classified as being an operational report and as such does not require a full Impact and Value Assessment. 9. Appendices 9.1 Appendix 1 - Perth and Kinross APC Annual Report 2024 - 2025.