Leicester City Youth Offending Service was strong in some areas, but had more to do to reduce reoffending, said Glenys Stacey, Chief Inspector of Probation. Today she published the report of a recent joint inspection of the work of Leicester City Youth Offending Service (YOS).

This joint inspection of youth offending work in Leicester City 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 satisfactory. Leicester City’s Youth Justice Plan includes the objective to improve the quality and timeliness of assessments. Inspectors found that following on from good assessments, interventions and work to directly address offending was not consistently being delivered or evaluated;
• work to protect the public and actual or potential victims was satisfactory. There were effective links with other key agencies including the police, Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements and probation services to manage the risk of harm to others. Work to protect others from domestic violence was not always strong enough;
• work to protect children and reduce their vulnerability was satisfactory. In the majority of cases, YOS workers understood how children and young people were vulnerable, either through their own actions or because of other people;
• work to ensure that the sentence was served was good. YOS workers were persistent in their attempts to engage children and young people and understand how their life experiences contributed to offending, risk to others and their vulnerability;
• the effectiveness of governance and partnership arrangements was satisfactory. The Board had a good understanding of the work of the YOS, but needed to hold all partners to account for the provision of services; and
• the management and delivery of interventions to reduce reoffending was satisfactory. Interventions to address offending behaviour needed to be used more often and then evaluated to that the YOS had a clear understanding of what was having the greatest impact.

Inspectors made recommendations to assist the YOS to make continuing improvements, including ensuring that the Board membership and composition allows for all partners to effectively challenge performance and contribute to the reduction of reoffending rates.
Dame Glenys Stacey said:

“Leicester City Youth Offending Service is performing satisfactorily in all key areas. Indeed, we found strengths in the way in which children and young people are engaged and about the support they receive to access education, training and employment. The YOS Management Board knows it still has work to do, especially in reducing reoffending, and has invested in the provision of interventions to try and tackle some entrenched thinking, behaviour and attitudes to offending.”
– ENDS –
NOTES TO EDITORS

1. The report is available at https://www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmiprobation/ from 12 May 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 Leicester City YOS primarily because their performance showed that reoffending was higher than local and national averages and that offending by Looked After Children was high.
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).
6. For further information, please contact Jane Parsons at HM Inspectorate of Probation press office on 020 3681 2775 or 07880 787452