Much of the work that Cwm Taf Youth Offending Service (YOS) was
doing with children and young people who had committed crimes was
satisfactory, but managers needed better strategic grip to improve
further, said Dame Glenys Stacey, Chief Inspector of Probation.
Today she published the report of a recent joint inspection of the
work of Cwm Taf Youth Offending Service (YOS).
This joint inspection of youth offending work in Cwm Taf is one
of a small number of full joint inspections undertaken by HM
Inspectorate of Probation with colleagues from the criminal
justice, social care, education and health inspectorates.
Inspectors focused on six key areas: reducing reoffending,
protecting the public, protecting children and young people,
making sure the sentence is served, the effectiveness of
governance and interventions to reduce reoffending.
Inspectors were pleased to find that:
- work to reduce reoffending was satisfactory. There were clear
and thorough assessments of children and young people to identify
the work needed to reduce reoffending, though planning and the
review of work did not always reflect this;
- work to protect the public and actual or potential victims
was satisfactory. Assessment of the risk of harm to others was
good. Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements (MAPPA) worked
well, but the plethora of other multi-agency meetings and
protocols needed improvement so that intelligence-sharing could
be more focused. Oversight by managers was not always
effective;
- work to protect children and reduce their vulnerability was
satisfactory. Some good safeguarding work was undertaken by case
managers but the YOS was not yet making effective use of
AssetPlus to support its case management. The immediate sharing
of information between other agencies and the YOS about missing
children did not always reach the right case managers;
- work to make sure the sentence was served was good. The YOS
made consistently good efforts to understand and respond to the
individual needs of young people. Staff built positive
relationships to make sure that engagement was good throughout,
meaning compliance work was effective;
- work relating to governance was ineffective. The YOS
Management Board provided a good arena for sharing information
and supporting the work of the YOS in meeting its priorities, but
could not direct strategic planning sufficiently due to an
absence of wider and more sophisticated data; and
- work on interventions to reduce offending was satisfactory.
The YOS was unable to assure itself that a suitable range of
interventions was available. Interventions had not been mapped
and evaluated and, therefore, their impact could not be
demonstrated. Restorative justice work was
good.
Inspectors made recommendations to assist the YOS to make
continuing improvements, including commissioning and evaluating a
needs analysis to identify what children and young people needed,
as well as the staff and business of the YOS as a whole. Routine
intelligence sharing between the police and the YOS should ensure
that case managers receive timely information about all children
and young people who are arrested.
Dame Glenys Stacey said:
“Cwm Taf Youth Offending Service works with children and young
people with complex needs, who often pose a risk to themselves
and others. We saw staff engaging well with these young people,
and their parents and carers, and much of the work the YOS was
delivering was satisfactory.
“But the YOS Management Board needs to focus on gathering data
more effectively so that it can analyse, plan and steer the work
of the Youth Offending Service. The Board especially needs to
look at how intelligence is shared from other partners, such as
the police and Children’s Services, particularly on missing
children and those at risk of sexual exploitation.”
- ENDS -
NOTES TO EDITORS
1. The report is
available at http://www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmiprobation/ from
5 July 2017.
2. The inspection
programme of youth offending work, based on a risk-proportionate
approach, was agreed by ministers in December 2011. Under this
programme, full joint inspections are targeted primarily on areas
where there are significant concerns about the effectiveness of
youth offending work, based primarily on the three national youth
justice indicators, supplemented by other measures, such as
recent inspections. Occasional inspections are undertaken in
areas that report high performance, in order to maintain a
benchmark for good practice. Inspectors chose to inspect Cwm Taf
YOS because its component areas had appeared consistently among
the poorest performing youth offending services
in Wales on a number of national indicators, and
because inspectorates wanted to test the effectiveness of its
creation through the amalgamation of two previous youth offending
services.
