Salford Youth Justice Service (YJS) has received an overall rating of ‘Good’ following an inspection by His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Probation as part of its programme of Youth Justice Service inspections.

The Service was rated across three broad areas – the arrangements for organisational delivery of the service, the quality of work done with children sentenced by the courts, and the quality of out-of-court disposal work. The quality of resettlement policy and provision was also separately rated as ‘Good’.

Chief Inspector of Probation, Martin Jones, said: “This YJS is committed to helping children achieve, promotes a child-first approach, encourages staff development, and it was pleasing to see interventions being co-created with children.”

The report found that Salford’s partnership working was a particular strength, especially its health provision and the multidisciplinary health drop-in sessions. Mentors also supported children in custody and in the community, and there was a good connection with children’s social care services and the complex safeguarding team.

Inspectors reported the YJS is well represented across strategic and operational partnerships, and the board receives high-quality information on the service’s performance. Despite this, they found the profile and offending of children, particularly younger children, needs strategic analysis by the partnership to ensure policies and practices do not result in children being unnecessarily criminalised.

Mr Jones added: “We found consistently high-quality work to assess, plan and deliver interventions for out-of-court disposals, particularly in relation to children’s desistence. However, the quality of work to manage children’s risk of harm to others in post-court cases requires improvement, and the use of police checks needs to be reviewed to ensure this information is used to positively impact and inform risk management activity moving forward.”

ENDS

 Notes to editor

 This service works with children aged 10 to 17. The YJS supervise children with complex needs and some in the care of the local authority.

1. The Inspectorate uses a four-point scale: ‘Outstanding’, ‘Good’, ‘Requires improvement’ and ‘Inadequate’, rating specific aspects of each service and giving an overall rating.
2. The inspection looked at standards of organisational delivery (leadership, staffing and facilities), their management of children serving court sentences (court disposals) and children serving cautions or community sentences (out-of-court disposals).
3. The report is available on the HM Inspectorate of Probation website on 09 May 2024 at 00.01.
4. HM Inspectorate of Probation is the independent inspector of youth justice and probation services across England and Wales.
5. Fieldwork for this inspection took place in January 2024.
6. For media enquiries, please contact Head of Communications media@hmiprobation.gov.uk (E-mail address)