Committed staff at Cambridgeshire Youth Offending Services worked hard to prevent children and young people from reoffending, said Dame Glenys Stacey, Chief Inspector of Probation. Today she published the report of a recent joint inspection of the work of Cambridgeshire Youth Offending Service (YOS).

This joint inspection of youth offending work in Cambridgeshire 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 five key areas: reducing reoffending, protecting the public, protecting children and young people, making sure the sentence is served and the effectiveness of governance.

Inspectors were pleased to find that:

• work to reduce reoffending was satisfactory. Staff and managers were committed to delivering high quality work to make a positive difference to those affected by offending and should be commended for maintaining their services over a difficult period. Work in the courts was strong;
• work to protect the public and actual or potential victims was satisfactory. Assessment of the risk of harm to others was generally good. Oversight by managers was not always effective. Police intelligence sharing needed to be more comprehensive;
• work to protect children and reduce their vulnerability was satisfactory. Much work was good, but joint work and information sharing with children’s services was not always effective and both planning and management oversight required some improvement;
• work to ensure the sentence was served was good. Staff were good at understanding and then seeking to address those factors in the lives of children that were likely to affect their engagement with the YOS. Where children did not comply with the sentence, action was taken when necessary to return the order to court; and
• governance and partnership arrangements were satisfactory. Outcomes against national criminal justice indicators were consistently among the best in England and Wales. However, the partnership had not been effective in improving education, training and employment outcomes for those known to the YOS post-16. Difficulties with IT systems had a substantial impact on the work of the YOS.

Inspectors made recommendations to assist the YOS to make continuing improvements, including ensuring children aged 16 years or over receive suitable education, training or employment, with monitoring in place, and making sure IT systems were reliable and supported case work and information sharing.

Dame Glenys Stacey said:

“It was pleasing to see that Cambridgeshire Youth Offending Service continued to perform well. Reoffending rates for young people were among the lowest in England and Wales over two years. Its staff understood the importance of forming positive relationships with children so that they could help them to change their lives. That said, some aspects needed to improve: progress on making sure that all young people received suitable education, training or employment had been stubbornly slow. The YOS was well regarded and the local authority was committed to supporting youth offending work, but some other partners needed to be more engaged.”

– ENDS –
NOTES TO EDITORS

1. The report is available at https://www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmiprobation/ from 23 February 2017.
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 Cambridgeshire YOS primarily because it was performing well on each of the national youth justice outcome indicators – reducing reoffending rates, reducing first-time entrants to the youth justice system and reducing the use of custodial sentences.
3. These inspections focus on issues not subject to other forms of external scrutiny: work to reduce offending and reoffending 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).
6. For further information, please contact Jane Parsons at HM Inspectorate of Probation press office on 020 3681 2775 or 07880 787452.