The quality of work being done with young people who had offended needed to improve in Islington, said Paul McDowell, Chief Inspector of Probation. Today he published the report of a recent joint inspection of the work of Islington Youth Offending Service (YOS).

This joint inspection of youth offending work in Islington 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 the likelihood of reoffending, protecting the public, protecting children and young people, ensuring that the sentence is served, the effectiveness of governance and the delivery of interventions.

Inspectors were concerned to find that:

• work done to reduce reoffending was poor. When a young person first came into contact with the YOS, time was taken to make an assessment of the factors that contributed to their offending, but the lack of regular reviews meant plans quickly became less relevant as their behaviour and lives changed. A lack of effective management oversight meant staff were not always guided to do the right things at the right time;
• work to protect the public and actual or potential victims was poor. Identifying and responding to the risk of harm that some children and young people posed was considerably underdeveloped and did not take into account previous offending patterns or behaviours;
• work to protect children and young people and reduce their vulnerability was poor. Many young people were vulnerable either from the actions of others or through their own behaviour and work to manage this was often not of a good enough quality;
• leadership, management and partnership was poor. Board members were clearly committed and lots of positive activity had taken place, but this had not yet had a demonstrable impact on practice; and
• work to provide sufficient interventions to meet the needs of children and young people was poor. Of the three main interventions used, two of these were written for adults and often not suitable for children. Case managers were hampered by the limited options available and lack of training, meaning some offending behaviour needs were unmet, particularly with young people who needed to work on their attitudes towards offending.

However, inspectors were pleased to find that:

• there was some effective joint work to identify, monitor and manage those involved with gangs, and young people commented on how the victim awareness pack had helped them see things from a different perspective;
• where children’s social care were involved with an individual, there was good communication and effective action by social workers to keep the child safe;
• work to ensure that ,the sentence was served was satisfactory. Staff had developed good relationships with children and parents/carers. There was a fast response when young people failed to comply with their orders, with positive attempts to re-engage them.

Inspectors made recommendations to assist Islington in its continuing improvement, including: making accurate and timely assessments, planning and reviewing work as required, ensuring that suitable interventions (particularly targeting theft of vehicles, dangerous driving and robbery) are available and used by trained staff, and improving management oversight of work to ensure effective practice.

Paul McDowell said:

“It was clear that since the last inspection substantial effort had been put in to try to improve the service delivered to children and young people. Unfortunately, this had not yet had sufficient impact. Improvement work had focused on assessment and planning but had concentrated on the introduction of processes when improvements to the quality of the work being undertaken were also required. Management oversight had not ensured consistent or effective practice.

“Work is now needed to ensure that the board and YOS managers focus on the quality of work being undertaken and that children and young people are able to access suitable interventions to address their offending behaviour. It is positive to note that there has been a reduction in the reoffending and custody rates recently, however these remain higher than the national average.”

 

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NOTES TO EDITORS

1. The report is available at https://www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmiprobation/ from 25 June 2014.
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 Islington YOT because their performance showed that they had high reoffending rates coupled with the results of the last inspection in June 2011, when substantial improvement work was required to work on reoffending, risk of harm and safeguarding.
3. These inspections focus on issues not subject to other forms of external scrutiny: work to reduce the likelihood of offending and re-offending by young people; the management and minimisation of the risk of harm that a young person may pose to other people; safeguarding young people from harm (from their own actions and others); and work to ensure they serve their sentence.
4. The inspections are led by HMI Probation, with participation by Ofsted, CQC and HMI Constabulary (and in Wales by the corresponding Welsh inspectorates, Healthcare Inspectorate Wales, Estyn and Care and Social Services Inspectorate Wales).

For further information or to request an interview, please contact Jane Parsons at HMI Probation press office on 020 3681 2775 or 07880 787452.