Youth offending services in the city of Derby were found by HM Inspectorate of Probation to be good overall, with particularly strong work to reduce the risk of children and young people reoffending.

Inspectors identified many areas of Derby YOS’s work that were innovative and demonstrated a good understanding of the needs of children and young people. They examined three broad areas of work: the organisation’s leadership and delivery of its services; work with those dealt with by the courts; and with children and young people dealt with out of court.

Children and young people referred to the YOS could access an “impressive range” of support and services to reduce reoffending. And, unusually in youth offending work, their siblings could also access support to prevent them getting involved in antisocial behaviour or crime.

However, publishing a report on the inspection in June 2018, Chief Inspector of Probation Dame Glenys Stacey, said Derby YOS “could and should do more to assess and respond accurately to safety and wellbeing concerns, and the risks that some children and young people pose to others.”

Dame Glenys added: “We also found that the YOS did not give sufficient attention to the needs of victims.” The report noted an area for improvement in its summary of court disposal work: “Safety and wellbeing of children and young people and risk of harm to victims were underestimated.”

In their analysis of out-of-court disposal work, those cases where children and young people were dealt with in a way that did not involve a court appearance, such as cautions, inspectors also noted: “Planning to manage risk of harm to others was sufficient in almost two-thirds of cases, but in two cases there was no planning at all. The impact of this was that there was not enough attention to keeping victims safe.”

Dame Glenys said a new head of Derby YOS had been appointed in November 2017 and the management team had started to review and change performance and practice. Some of the intended outcomes had not been fully realised by June 2018 and some work had been undermined by staff sickness levels.

Overall, Dame Glenys said: “At an organisational level we found a good picture. The chair of the management board was knowledgeable, and effective partnerships were in place. However, board members should understand performance data and management information in a more detailed way, to challenge the YOS effectively, and to drive improvements. The board needs to maintain its success in reducing first-time entrants to the criminal justice system, and promising trends in reoffending rates and the use of custody so that they are closer to the national average.”

– ENDS –

Notes to editors:

1. The report is available at justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmiprobation at 00.01 on Thursday 23 August 2018.
2. Youth Offending Teams (YOTs), which deliver youth offending services, supervise 10-18-year olds who have been sentenced by a court, or who have come to the attention of the police because of their offending behaviour but have not been charged and instead are dealt with out of court.
3. This inspection is the first of HMI Probation’s new programme of YOT inspections. Derby was inspected and rated across three broad areas: organisational delivery, court disposals work, and out of court disposals work.
4. We inspected against new standards and all services are given one of four ratings: outstanding, good, requires improvement and inadequate.
5. Fieldwork for the Derby inspection took place in June 2018.
6. For further information please contact John Steele, HMI Probation Chief Communications Officer, on 020 3334 0357 or 07880 78745, or at john.steele@justice.gov.uk