Lambeth Youth Offending Service (YOS) in south London was found by inspectors to have foundations for improvement in place after previous inspections raised serious concerns about the quality of its work.

The YOS was assessed as ‘Requiring improvement’, the second-lowest assessment by HM Inspectorate of Probation. However, Dame Glenys Stacey, HM Chief Inspector of Probation, said: “There are strong governance and leadership arrangements, and a knowledgeable independent Chair of the Board who has enabled the partnership to better understand how it contribute to the work of the YOS.”

Lambeth is a large, densely-populated and highly diverse inner London borough with a fast-changing population and the challenges of serious youth violence.

Inspectors found the YOS has a very well-resourced health and wellbeing team with a clear understanding of the positive impact of good health provision. It has worked with Education, Learning and Skills services to strengthen the capacity of schools to manage challenging behaviour to avoid exclusions.

Dame Glenys said, however, that although there were good strategic working relationships across agencies, “this has not yet translated into operational practice for frontline staff.

“Information is not shared consistently to enable staff to review the risk or needs of children. The risk of harm that some children can pose to others is minimised, whilst the wider vulnerabilities that they experience in terms of their own safety and wellbeing is not always identified.”

In response to the recommendations in an HM Inspectorate of Probation thematic report on out-of-court disposals, the Lambeth partnership completed a full review of its processes and there is now a multi-agency joint decision-making panel in place.

In both court and out-of-court work, inspectors rated assessments of desistance – factors leading to the cessation of offending or other antisocial behaviour – as outstanding. However, the quality of interventions delivered to children and young people needed to improve.

Dame Glenys added: “Our inspection found that opportunities for restorative justice are not always considered, and the views of children and young people, their parents or carers and other stakeholders are not captured and used to influence future service delivery.”

Overall, Dame Glenys said:

“The recommendations in this report have been designed to assist Lambeth YOS to build on its strengths and focus on areas for improvement.”

ENDS

Notes to editors:

1. The report is available at www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmiprobation on 25 April 2019.

2. HM Inspectorate of Probation is the independent inspector of youth offending and probation services in England and Wales. The Inspectorate rates individual aspects of work and its overall performance using a four-point scale: Outstanding, Good, Requires improvement and Inadequate.

3. 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.

4. Lambeth has one of the largest geographic areas of any inner-London borough and is known for its iconic town centres, including Brixton and Clapham, and for the diversity of the communities living in the borough. At least 318,000 people live in Lambeth (State of the Borough 2016 report) and it is the fifth most densely populated borough nationally. Lambeth is ethnically diverse, even more so among school-age children than adults. It has a fast-changing population, and this means that there is significant pupil mobility within Lambeth schools There is rising employment in Lambeth and school-age children are achieving improved exam results. However, it remains one of the most deprived areas of the country, and is the 8th most deprived borough in London and the 22nd most deprived in England (Indices of Multiple Deprivation 2010 and 2015).

5. This is the fourth joint inspection carried out since June 2018. In these inspections, we involve specialist inspectors from the police, health, social care and learning and skills sectors, who together examine the work of the youth offending partnership

6. For further information please contact Head of Communications Catherine Chan on 07889 405930 or media@hmiprobation.gov.uk (E-mail address)