Birmingham Youth Offending Service (YOS), the largest such service in England and Wales, has received an overall rating of ‘Requires improvement’ following an inspection by His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Probation.

Chief Inspector of Probation Justin Russell said: “We last inspected Birmingham Youth Offending Service in 2020, also awarding a rating of ‘Requires improvement’. Although our rating remains the same, we have seen positive developments by the service in the past three years. We acknowledge that they face additional, and often unique, challenges as the largest youth justice service in England and Wales. They have improved and we believe such efforts, in the circumstances, should not be underestimated.”

Significant work has been undertaken to improve the governance and leadership of the service and services to meet children’s needs. But, recruitment and retention of staff has been challenging and those who contributed, to the inspection, reported finding the current workload excessive and overwhelming.

Inspectors found that the quality of work with children needs to develop further. Although we found improvements to the way cases diverted from the formal criminal justice process are assessed and supported, there has been a decline in the quality of delivery for the more serious cases which still go through court. Practice for these cases was not sufficiently promoting the safety of children and other people. There needs to be better coordination and a shared response with other partners to risk and safety management.

We also wanted to see Birmingham YOS more consistently meeting the diversity needs of children. This is especially important given that Black, Asian and minority ethnic children make up two-thirds of the caseload at the service, and children with learning difficulties and disabilities account for over half. Meeting the diversity needs of staff also requires strengthening, to ensure that all protected characteristics are consistently and effectively responded to.

This inspection made 11 recommendations, including improvements to how the partnership services respond to managing the risks to and from each child, and stronger shared responsibility to promoting safety for all.

ENDS

1. This service works with children aged 10 to 17. The YJS supervise children with complex needs and some in the care of the local authority.
2. The Inspectorate uses a four-point scale: ‘Outstanding’, ‘Good’, ‘Requires improvement’ and ‘Inadequate’, rating specific aspects of each service and giving an overall rating.
3. The inspection looked at standards of organisational delivery (leadership, staffing and facilities), their management of children serving court sentences (court disposals) and children serving cautions or community sentences (out-of-court disposals). It also rated the quality of resettlement work as ‘Requires improvement.
4. The report is available on the HM Inspectorate of Probation website on 21 March 2023 00.01.
5. HM Inspectorate of Probation is the independent inspector of youth offending and probation services across England and Wales.
6. Fieldwork for this inspection took place in December 2022.
7. For media enquiries, please contact media@hmiprobation.gov.uk (E-mail address)