Wolverhampton Youth Offending Team was doing some impressive work to reduce reoffending and change young people’s lives, said Alan MacDonald, Assistant Chief Inspector of Probation. Today he published the report of a recent joint inspection of the work of Wolverhampton Youth Offending Team (YOT).

This joint inspection of youth offending work in Wolverhampton 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, ensuring the sentence is served, the effectiveness of governance and court work and reports.

Inspectors were pleased to find that:

• work to reduce reoffending was good. Pre-sentence reports provided the necessary information to support sentencing recommendations. Assessments, plans and reviews were carried out when required. Work delivered to reduce reoffending was largely effective;
• work to protect the public and actual or potential victims was good. Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements to manage risk of harm were meaningful. The YOT police officer was well integrated into the public protection role;
• work to protect children and reduce their vulnerability remained satisfactory. Planning of work to address safeguarding and vulnerability was done well and joint work with social care was good. There was no Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) worker at the YOT which resulted in some emotional needs not being met;
• work to ensure that the sentence was served was good. Compliance was managed extremely well. Young people and their parents/carers praised the work of the YOT. Education, training and employment provision for post-16 children and young people was limited;
• the effectiveness of governance and partnership arrangements was satisfactory. The YOT Board had not met for 11 months between 2014 and 2015. A well-attended Board met in June with a new Chair and on two subsequent occasions in 2015, and was now well-placed to oversee the delivery of quality services. There was a recognition that work on child sexual exploitation needed developing; and
• the management and delivery of interventions to reduce reoffending was good. Interventions had been delivered skilfully and enthusiastically.

Inspectors made recommendations to assist the YOT to make continuing improvements, including: improving education, training and employment outcomes for children and young people and including a Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services representative on the YOT Management Board.
Alan MacDonald said:

“Wolverhampton Youth Offending Team was performing very well. The YOT and its partners had placed children and young people at the heart of their work. Planning for work to reduce reoffending was impressive. Interventions were delivered to a high standard by dedicated and skilful staff. Their knowledge about the children and young people with whom they were working was being used to change lives. Education, training and employment outcomes for children and young people required improvement. Children and young people and their parents/carers were appreciative of the service they were receiving. The YOT Management Board had overcome its recent difficulties and was now well-placed to consolidate its delivery of effective services.”

 

ENDS
NOTES TO EDITORS

1. The report is available at https://www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmiprobation/ from 11 February 2016.
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 Wolverhampton YOT primarily because the annual plan was received very late. Further investigation gave cause for concern about the effectiveness of local governance and leadership arrangements given that the YOT Management Board had not met regularly. The reoffending rate for Wolverhampton was 33.8%. This was worse than the previous year but better than the average for England and Wales of 37.9%.
3. These inspections focus on issues not subject to other forms of external scrutiny: work to reduce 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. There are four ratings which can be given: good, satisfactory, unsatisfactory and poor.
5. 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, please contact Jane Parsons at HM Inspectorate of Probation press office on 020 3681 2775 or 07880 787452