About
About the data
Where the information comes from, how up to date it is, and what it can and cannot tell you.
At a glance
- 9,660 care services currently listed, run by 4,920 registered providers.
- 8,739 (90%) have at least one published inspection grade, and 6,186 (64%) were graded in the last three years.
- The data is as at 30 September 2026, the date of the latest Care Inspectorate release we have loaded.
Services listed by type:
- Day Care of Children: 3,256
- Child Minding: 2,419
- Support Service: 1,592
- Housing Support Service: 1,042
- Care Home Service: 981
- Nurse Agency: 145
- Adult Placement Service: 73
- Fostering Service: 57
- School Care Accommodation Service: 41
- Adoption Service: 38
- Child Care Agency: 9
- Secure Accommodation Service: 4
- Offender Accommodation Service: 3
Where it comes from
Service details, inspection grades and complaint counts come from the Care Inspectorate's published open data, called the Datastore. It is licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. The Care Inspectorate is Scotland's regulator for care services, and its own record is always the one to rely on.
How up to date it is
The Care Inspectorate publishes a new release about once a month, and we load each one when it appears. The "data as at" date shows which release you are looking at. Between releases, the official record can be ahead of ours, so each service page links to the Care Inspectorate's own page for the latest position.
If a service stops appearing in the latest complete release, for example because it has closed or been cancelled, we take it out of the directory and the search results. A withdrawn service can still be reached by its address, where a notice explains this and enquiries are switched off.
What is counted
Each listing is one registration with the Care Inspectorate, identified by its CS number. The same address can hold more than one registration: for example, a building registered both as a care home and as a support service. So the number of listings is not the number of buildings, and it is not the number of people cared for.
Grades, and what is missing
- A grade describes a service when it was inspected. Each page shows the date, so you can judge how current it is.
- Some services have no grade yet, often because they are newly registered or have not been inspected under the current framework.
- The Care Inspectorate changed its grading framework in 2021. Older and newer inspections are shown on the same 1 to 6 scale.
- For some kinds of service, such as childminders, the open data holds back detail, so we show less.
What we do and do not change
We never change, estimate or adjust a grade. Averages and comparisons are calculated from the published grades and are there to help you compare. Providers can add their own information to a listing, such as a description or vacancies, and promoted placements are labelled. Payment has no effect on grades.
Other public data
Beyond the Care Inspectorate's own figures, the site brings in other public statistics and notices, all published under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Each is loaded on its own schedule, and none of them changes a grade.
- Care home occupancy (Public Health Scotland, annual care home census). Shown by council area on Insights. PHS estimates the figure where a home did not submit.
- People delayed in hospital (Public Health Scotland, monthly census): adults ready to leave hospital but still waiting, by council area. We check for a new release weekly.
- Population, including people aged 75 and over and 85 and over (National Records of Scotland). Figures after the latest estimate are projections.
- Staff vacancies in care services (Scottish Social Services Council and the Care Inspectorate, published once a year). It shows the share of services that reported vacancies at 31 December, and the share of full-time-equivalent posts left unfilled, by council area. It covers every kind of care service that returned the Care Inspectorate's annual return, not only care homes, and leaves out childminders. The SSSC classes it as management information, not official statistics. Contains data from the Scottish Social Services Council, licensed under the Open Government Licence.
- Care tenders (Public Contracts Scotland, checked daily). The tenders page lists open notices from councils, health boards and partnerships for care and support services, and links to the official notice. We only list them: we do not run tenders or advise on bids, and the estimated values are the buyer's own and often cover a whole contract term.
These sit beside the directory by council area, so grades can be read alongside demand and capacity. Figures such as care home places for every 1,000 people aged 75 and over are indicative only, because people of all ages use care homes and people travel between areas; the page says how each figure is worked out.
If something looks wrong
We show what the Care Inspectorate publishes, so a mistake in the source record has to be corrected by the Care Inspectorate. Tell us and we will help you raise it with them, and we will fix anything that is our own error. Use the contact form, or the "Report an error" link on any service page.
Also: About us · How to use this site · About the data · Help and FAQ · Contact us