Agenda item

To provide an overview of the impact of YJS delivery outlined in the Brent Youth Justice Plan 2025-2028, which is due to be presented at Cabinet in October.

Nigel Chapman (Corporate Director for Children, Young People and Community Development, Brent Council) introduced the report, which provided an overview of the impact of Youth Justice Service (YJS) delivery and its partners in 2024-25. In outlining the report, he highlighted that it felt like a successful story in the challenging environment in Brent. He reminded the Committee that the report did not just cover local authority work, but the local area partnership as a whole, because youth justice, under legislation, was delivered by partners with a multi-agency partnership approach to youth justice in Brent. He introduced Tony Bellis, Superintendent for Safer Neighbourhoods in the North West Borough Command Unit (NW BCU), Met Police, who had attended online as one of the partner agencies supporting youth justice in Brent. Tony Bellis agreed that the report showed a success story, and he was proud of the work of his teams in the Youth Justice Service and the relationship officers had with the local authority and stakeholders.

Nigel Chapman informed the Committee that there was a new His Majesties Inspectorate of Probation Inspection cycle and Brent was expecting an inspection under this new framework imminently. There had only been 6 published inspections under the new framework, two of which were in London. Brent’s previous inspection had been in 2019 when youth justice had been judged as ‘good’, and the Youth Justice Service was currently assessing itself as providing at least a ‘good’ service through quality assurance work.

Serita Kwofie (Head of Early Help, Brent Council) provided further information about the self-assessment judgement of ‘good’, which she explained came from evidence of strengths. The YJS had seen a reduction in reoffending custody rates and first-time entry rates, which were lower than the London average and statistical neighbours. She was proud of Brent’s out of court disposal processes, and Brent had achieved 100% in its decision-making which was strong and in line with guidance. There were some areas to focus on improving, including reducing disproportionality and increasing the voice of victims in youth justice work, which the new inspection framework would review. She felt that the YJS was well placed to achieve that considering what was already offered through the Restorative Justice Programme, and the focus on strengthening that to hear the voice of victims.

The Chair thanked officers for the introduction and invited comments and questions from those present, with the following points raised:

The Committee were of the view that the narrative of the report did not match the figures being presented. Members highlighted that the report stated that custody rates had been falling for the last 10 years, but table 4 in paragraph 6.4 showed that across the last few years the figures had fluctuated and been inconsistent. Similarly, table 3 at paragraph 6.2 showed an upward trend for reoffending since 2022, despite the narrative of the report stating that reoffending had been on a downward trend for a 10-year period. Nigel Chapman advised that the covid period did distort the figures in terms of first-time entrants and reoffending rates as there was less crime during that period, meaning there was a dip in rates generally which had been factored in. He highlighted that the long-term trend still showed a gradual reduction in offending rates, and that fluctuated because the cohort size was very small so any changes would be significant in the figures. Officers explained that table 3 provided data up to March 2023, whereas the report focused on 2024-25 activity which might be why there were anomalies, but the Committee was assured that there was data on the ground, obtained through audits, showing that offending rates were declining. Serita Kwofie added that, whilst there were fluctuations, the YJS continued to address that through measures to support low reoffending rates, particularly through working with MOPAC funded programmes and organisations such as My Endz 2.0. in relation to first time entrants, there was fluctuation which the YJS was addressing, as detailed in the report, particularly around disproportionality as it was found that a disproportionate number of Black African Caribbean males were represented in the figures. The Council worked closely with the police around first-time entrants who ultimately made the decision whether to arrest or charge a young person, and there was close working to divert young people from being charged with an offense.

The Committee was pleased that the long-term trend was a downward trend in youth offending figures, but noted the demographic information of those known to the YJS and raised concerns that when those narratives occurred so early in a person’s life it hindered their progression into adulthood. Nigel Chapman agreed that any young person who was arrested, charged and convicted of an offense was one too many, but there was also an element around public confidence in the justice system, where some offenses were so serious that there was no alternative but to charge and convict.

Noting the figures around disproportionality, particularly for males of Black Caribbean heritage, the Committee linked that to disproportionality in educational attainment for boys of Black Caribbean heritage, and sought assurance that there was preventative work taking place before an offense was made. Serita Kwofie informed members of the development of the Targeted Prevention Hub as part of the Families First Partnership Programme that had been launched by the Department for Education (DfE). That Hub was a way to bring together services focusing on contextual safeguarding, so that where there was a risk to a young person, such as repeatedly going missing or indicators that the young person was at risk of coming to police attention, services got to them early. Tony Bellis added that the Met Police had recently rolled out adultification and disproportionality training for all frontline officers and there was more awareness of safeguarding approaches to children and young people now. He felt that the early use of strategy discussions and professional meetings had made a big difference, not only for victims of crime but also perpetrators, and missing persons. He highlighted that previously the Met would not have held strategy discussions with partners around young people involved in crime, but now this formed part of the Met’s investigative strategy. The Met had also recently implemented its Child First Strategy, a holistic approach to children and young people. For example, previously, officers might have worked in silos, but there was now a holistic approach around a young person, recognising that while they could be a perpetrator of a crime, they could also be a victim in their own right. Since the implementation of these new strategies, the Met had seen a significant decline in the use of tactics such as more thorough intimate part searches on young people, and the outcome rate of stop and searches resulting in arrest or community resolution had increased to 1/3 of people stop and searched. He highlighted that the figures did not always tell the full story, so whilst there were fluctuations, the outcomes could be different, for example a young person may not be being charged but offered a community resolution instead, with the focus now on not criminalising children and working with partners. It was added that half of the 200 young people supported by the YJS over the course of the year had been supported outside of the formal Criminal Justice System, showing that 50% of YJS work was preventative.

The Committee asked whether there were common trends that the YJS were observing in terms of who was offending. Nigel Chapman advised that the report listed a small number of young people in care, some of whom may be in care as a result of their offending if they had been remanded into custody, and there was a link between deprivation and youth offending. Additionally, young people who came to the attention of the service often had a challenged education history or may be attending a pupil referral unit.

The Committee asked how the YJS supported young people form a mental health perspective. Serita Kwofie advised that the YJS was fortunate to have a close partnership with CAMHS as part of the team, providing early access to mental health support for young people, particularly where they may have an undiagnosed need. It was found that, often, young people who came to the attention of YJS had gone through education with an undiagnosed need and may have missed education for a number of factors. There were other services available to support young people coming to the attention of the service, including substance misuse colleagues, and the YJS worked to provide tangible support, including education and employment opportunities as a tangible diversionary outcome.

Noting the levels of staffing reported in paragraph 1.5 of the report, the Committee asked if that was sufficient for the need being dealt with in the YJS. Serita Kwofie advised that the service could always benefit from more staff which provided greater capacity to deliver the service, but felt the team did a good job with the resources available, working in partnership with other organisations and programmes to support the offer.

Highlighting the work of Brent Health Matters (BHM) who were doing good work in Park Royal Commercial Hub finding opportunities such as apprenticeships, the Committee asked how the YJS joined that work up, using other partners to ensure there were various avenues to give young people the best possible preventative offer. Nigel Chapman advised that the education offer within the YJS was from the voluntary sector organisation Shaw Trust, who had good knowledge of the opportunities available for young people and delivered a good performance. He felt that the Council’s employment and skills offer as a whole, and its approach to joint working with private and public sector businesses, could be better co-ordinated. He now had employment and skills within his remit and had recently undertaken a review of that, so would be taking the recommendations of that forward to improve the offer. Within the YJS specifically, there was a very targeted support offer as it was a very small cohort of young people who each had an individual advisor to help them find opportunities. The YJS also worked closely with Young Brent Foundation who developed opportunities for young people, including apprenticeships, and that organisation sat on the Youth Justice Board providing that joined up partnership working. They were also heavily involved in the action plan underpinning the Youth Strategy.

The Committee asked how youth justice work was being aligned with other Council strategies such as the Youth Strategy and Black Community Action Plan (BCAP). Serita Kwofie advised that the work aligned well with the Youth Strategy, which had looked at where young people had said they did not feel safe, where they needed more access to youth services, education, employment and training opportunities and how the Council provided diversionary activities for young people who came to the attention of youth justice. Young people involved in the YJS were also helping to develop the action plan sitting under the Youth Strategy so the Council was hearing those voices and bringing them into strategies. Nigel Chapman added that the next version of the SEND Inclusion Strategy was in development, which would include strategies for young people with additional needs who were involved in the YJS, and its Early Years Strategy, ensuring that children were on the right path at an early stage because it was known that if children were behind by the age of 5 their indicators for life were poorer, including the potential risk of offending. As such, long term outcomes needed to be met through intervention in the first 5 years of life.

The Committee advised officers of several initiatives set up as diversionary outcomes in other areas, such as in Manchester where an ex-offender had set up a boxing programme for young people in South London which had good success. They suggested the Council could do similar projects, building on the experience of other local authorities.

The Chair drew the item to a close and invited members to make recommendations with the following RESOLVED:

i)               For the service to strengthen and expand partnerships with boxing clubs, music groups, and similar community-based  initiatives that promote rehabilitation, foster pro-social identity, reduce the risk of reoffending, and help individuals remain engaged and focused on their future.

ii)              For the Youth Justice Service to consider engaging with Wembley Stadium to explore potential employment pathways in the security and hospitality sectors, aimed at supporting young people transitioning out of the service and reintegrating into the community.

iii)             For the Youth Justice Service to strengthen collaboration with Brent’s partners and community and voluntary sector.

iv)             As the current report did not focus on this area in detail, the Committee requested a future update outlining any progress made in developing these partnerships.

During the course of the discussion an information request was made, recorded as follows:

i)               As agreed by the Corporate Director for Children, Young People and Community Development, the Committee requested an explanatory note detailing the methodology used to produce the 2024-25 data presented in the report.