Agenda item

For Members to receive an update on progress in relation to the Youth Justice Service

Members were updated on progress in relation to the Youth Justice Service.

The Chair welcomed Councillor Ash Lister (Cabinet Member for Children’s Social Services), Deborah Driffield (Director of Children’s Services) and Angharad Thomas (Operational Manager, Youth Justice Services).

Councillor Lister was invited to make a statement, in which he noted that positive progress had been made in the year since Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons (HMIP) returned to inspect the Youth Justice Service. The board now continued to focus on performance measures and updating the staff and was understanding the cohort of young people supported by the service. It had adopted a new thematic approach focused on girls within the system, key education transition points and understanding court processes. It worked in partnership with other public bodies, particularly education, health and South Wales Police. Recent feedback from the Youth Justice Board described the new strategy as outstanding, and young people’s voices needed to be at the heart of it. Suzanne Scarlett had recently joined the board with a focus on the child-friendly city approach. He paid tribute to the staff and board and thanked Graham Robb, who was standing down from his role as independent chair in May, and highlighted the benefits of this model.

The Chair added his thanks to Graham Robb.

Members were invited to ask questions and make comments; the discussion is summarised as follows:

Members asked about the progress of the seven recommendations for improvement in the last inspectorate report in August. A full action plan had been written and approved by HMIP, and a full quality assurance framework was in place, monitored monthly. Progress had been made on each of the seven recommendations, three of which related to the board and four to staff. The next full inspection would be in three to four years.

Members queried whether there was sufficient funding to expand the prevention and diversion services when the turnaround grant only lasted for two years. This grant had allowed them to enhance the prevention service, and the positive impact of this should be clear when it came to future waves of funding.

Members queried the rise in reoffending rates in the second quarter. Angharad Thomas clarified that this rise was due to there being fewer children coming through the statutory remit of youth justice, so it only took one or two people to cause a spike. One young person had committed nine low-level offences before they could even start working with him.

Members heard that the service had recently hired a full-time speech and language therapist, in recognition of the importance of communication needs. They were ensuring that staff were trained to observe and respond to the needs of young people.

Members were informed of how the service’s KPIs helped to achieve its targets, including addressing disproportionality and diversity. The KPIs were set by the Youth Justice Board, and the new ones took the work of partners into account more than before.

Members heard about the focus on partnership working across the organisation, especially between education and children’s services through the locality model. Relationships were getting better, but one of the key challenges was the complexity of issues facing young people, and helping schools to understand the remit of children’s services. It was key to reach children who hadn’t gone back to school after the pandemic, and joined-up working helped with this.

Members discussed the impact of permanent exclusion on a young person’s future, and the work done to avoid this occurring. They needed to be sure that every possible measure had been taken before resorting to exclusion.

RESOLVED: That the Chairperson writes to the Cabinet Member on behalf of the Committee expressing their comments and observations captured during the way forward.