Agenda item

This report provides an update on the work of the Brent Youth Offending Service including performance, legislative changes impacting the service and revised inspection arrangements.

Angela Chiswell (Head of Youth Support Services) presented a report updating the committee on the work of the Brent Youth Offending Service (YOS), focussing on service performance, the revised inspection arrangements and the impact of changes to the legislative framework. It was explained that the YOS formed part of the council’s youth support service and comprised a multi-agency team working across the Police, Probation Service, Social Care, Health, the Courts and Crown Prosecution Service. The principal aim of the service was to reduce the risk of young people offending or re-offending.

Angela Chiswell advised that the introduction of the provisions outlined in the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders (LASPO) Act  2012 had resulted in a number of significant changes for the work of the YOS. In particular, a change to Out of Court disposals had effectively removed the ‘escalator’ of reprimands and final warnings. Therefore a young person who had previously offended and then subsequently committed a much lesser offence would not automatically progress to the next stage in the youth justice system. For the YOS, this meant that the workload relating to Referral Orders imposed for minor offences was anticipated to decrease. A further key change brought about by the LASPO Act 2012, was the introduction of Looked After status for children or young people remanded into custody. As a consequence, local authorities now bore financial responsibility via the Social Care Budget for the cost of secure remands, following a transfer of funding based on previous years usage. Furthermore, young people remanded beyond 13 weeks would be eligible for leaving care status. A social worker had been employed to address this new responsibility.

The key performance indicators (KPIs) for the YOS were outlined to the committee by Angela Chiswell. Members heard that the percentage of re-offending by young people in Brent had increased from 35.5 percent in 2011/12 to 45.8 percent in 2013/14 and there had also been an increase in the percentage of young people receiving custodial sentences. At present, Brent was part of a Youth Justice Board national pilot which sought to test the success of targeted interventions with certain re-offending groups.  It was emphasised that the statutory assessments conducted by the YOS in 2012-13 had triggered a Risk of Serious Harm (ROSH) assessment in 65 percent of cases and a Vulnerability Management Plan (VMP) in 45 percent of cases. VMPs set out measures to protect young people who had offended. Over the same period there had also been 38 referrals under the Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements (MAPPA); offenders eligible for MAPPA included registered sexual offenders and violent offenders sentenced to at least 12 months detention. Given the serious nature of the offences associated with MAPPA, and the cohort (young people aged 10 to 17 years old), the number of these referrals was considered to be quite high. In concluding her presentation, Angela Chiswell advised that the YOS was subject to inspection by the HM Inspectorate of Probation and the inspection arrangements were considerably changed from the framework since Brent YOS was last inspected in December 2011. 

The committee thanked Angela Chiswell for her report and sought additional analysis, by gender and age, of the figures presented. A breakdown by ethnicity, gender and age was also requested in relation to those young people who qualified for support via Triage. Angela Chiswell advised that this information could be provided.

In the ensuing discussion, members questioned the contributing factors to Brent’s high rate of youth offending and asked for further comment on the links with gang activity. The committee also queried the success of the pilot scheme and asked what strategies were in place to exploit the existing resources of the council including children’s centres, the troubled families initiative and the Multi Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH). 

Responding to the issues raised, Angela Chiswell explained that there were a number of factors which could be identified as overlapping with higher rates of youth offending, including poverty and being in the group of young people not in employment, education or training (NEET). Furthermore, Brent was one of the 17 London Boroughs which received additional funding to tackle gang related issues. The committee was assured that the YOS worked closely with the Early Years and Family Support team, as well as the Community Safety team. Sara Williams (Interim Director of Children and Families) advised that a key focus of the Working with Families (troubled families) approach had been to align services; this had been achieved very successfully between the Working with Families service and YOS and it was recognised that there was significant overlap in their respective cohorts. As part of this work, an exercise had been conducted to identify whether the families of those young offenders known to the YOS met the criteria for support via the Working with Families service. The committee was informed that the funding for the Troubled Families initiative had been extended for a further three years and it was hoped that the criteria would be extended to encompass families with younger children to enable a more preventative approach to be fostered.

RESOLVED:

    (i)        that an update be provided on the Youth Justice Board national pilot scheme in due course;

  (ii)        that an update be provided on the integration of the council’s resources in tacking youth offending in Brent and the impact of early intervention services on the work of the Youth Offending Service;

 (iii)        that further analysis of the figures provided by gender and age be provided to the committee;

 (iv)        that a breakdown by ethnicity, gender and age of those young people who qualified for triage services be provided to the committee.