Agenda item

Report of the Statutory Scrutiny Officer

Wilf Fearon, Head of Early Help Services, presented the report and delivered a presentation on progress made since the joint inspection in 2019 and the peer review in 2022, highlighting the following:

(a)  the Youth Justice Service (YJS) is a partnership organisation and statutory requirement of the Local Authority. The Service is staffed by Local Authority and partnership staff including seconded Probation staff, Police Officers, Nurses and Substance use practitioners. Children are supported on a range of prevention, pre-Court, and post-Court, including custodial sentence, interventions. Most work is now pre-Court intervention;

(b)  Nottingham’s YJS received a full three-week joint inspection in November 2019 and was rated overall as ‘Requires improvement’, with recommendations for improvement on a range of areas;

(c)  In November 2022, the Service invited a Peer Review team, made up of YJS Managers from across the country, to come and review the service with a focus on four key areas: the effectiveness of the Governance arrangements, operational arrangements for First-Time Entrants, partnership arrangements supporting the work around First-Time Entrants, and local arrangements to reduce Serious Youth Violence and to support the management of high risk children in the community. The team produced a report detailing strengths, areas for consideration and recommendations;

(d)  the YJS has addressed the recommendations from both the HMIP Inspection and the Peer Review within the Operational Delivery Plan that is reviewed on a quarterly basis by the Youth Justice Management Board. Key assurance activity that has been completed includes the development of a Diversity and Identity Strategy and Action Plan, ongoing participation and engagement exercises, the review and development of the Child Criminal Exploitation management process, the ongoing development of a prevention and early intervention offer, and the review and development of risk management and quality assurance processes;

(e)  immediately following the inspection the Service put in place remedial actions regarding the Out of Court process and now the Council has a robust quality assured, multi-agency Out of Court Disposal panel and is working in partnership to address the ongoing issues of high first-time entrants to the Youth Justice System. This process was recognised by the Peer Reviewers as being of a high standard compared to other YJSs they had observed.

In response to questions from the Committee and during subsequent discussion the following points were made:

(f)  schools and education are an important part of the Youth Justice process, as they identify issues and begin early intervention. If a child is permanently excluded then they are less likely to be criminally exploited if they attend alternative provision. An education representative sits on the Youth Justice Board;

(g)  many youth centres with diversionary activities have been closed due to budget pressures. Time is dedicated to strengthening partnerships with external organisations so that these can be delivered, with some funding available through the Area Based Grant;

(h)  HMIP’s new inspection regime begins in 2024, and the YJS is expecting another inspection that year. The management Board is aware of which improvements will be expected and is confident that the outcome will be better than the previous inspection.

Resolved to

(1)  request an item at a future meeting on alternative education provision of permanently excluded children, as well as the outcomes of the Education Priority Investment Area funding once the funding has ended;

(2)   investigate if comparison data is available with other local authorities on demand for the service and share this with Committee members.