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Drivers of Performance - Partnership Working
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Youth Justice Plan 2007 to 2008
Drivers of Performance
C5. Partnership Working
Please provide a summary of the support from partner agencies and plans to develop links with partners – statutory and non-statutory.
There is a strong culture of partnership working in Leicestershire and the YOS has excellent working relationships with other agencies. Partnership arrangements are outlined in Section B, the local planning environment. Some particular examples of how partnership arrangements are integral to the YOS are:
- The Leicestershire Local Area Agreement (LAA) Safer Communities Block shares a target with the Children’s Block to improve life chances and secure better opportunities for vulnerable young people. A joint delivery group (which meets monthly) delivers this target through a multi-agency approach to targeted preventative support for vulnerable children and young people. Partners include: the Children and Young People’s Service (CYPS), the YOS, Leicestershire NHS Partnership Trust Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS)), District Councils, the Voluntary Sector (Charnwood Arts and the Centre for Fun and Families), Connexions, the Learning and Skills Council, the Police, DAAT and Bridges. One of the reward indicators within this target includes increasing the percentage of young people prevented from further offending after receiving a reprimand and performance results so far indicate that we are likely to meet this target. Work with the Police is critical to achieving this indicator – they undertake an initial screening of young people receiving a reprimand and refer those at risk of reoffending to the Prevention team.
- The Youth Inclusion and Support Project is responsible for co-ordinating and chairing seven multi-agency panels across Leicestershire. The panels comprise representatives from Children and Young People’s Services, Voluntary Organisations, District Council ASB Co-ordinators, Police, Health, Connexions and the Youth Service. The panels discuss all YISP cases, sharing information where appropriate and produce multi-agency plans for young people at risk of offending. The panels link closely with pastoral forums where they exist in schools. The YISP team is also part of the Family STEPS multi-agency network, a network (including CAMHS, CYPS, Centre for Fun and Families, and Homestart) set up to provide early intervention to families in order to bring about change.
- The PPO Strategy Group reports to the Community Safety Programme Board and is responsible for developing and overseeing arrangements for Prolific and Other Priority Offenders in Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland. Representatives from the Police, Probation, Health, DAAT, Community Safety, City and County YOS, APEX and other employment organisations contribute to this group to ensure enhanced supervision and surveillance of PPOs.
- The YOS has worked with the Police and Councils to implement a tiered approach to the use of ASB legislation. As a result of the work the legislation is being used appropriately, leading to a higher success rate in terms of young people meeting the requirements of their Acceptable Behaviour Contracts and relatively small numbers of ASBOs in Leicestershire and Rutland.
- The Youth Justice Working Group (a sub-group of the Local Criminal Justice Board) is responsible for improving Criminal Justice Agencies’ performance in respect of the Government’s PYO pledge to reduce the average time taken between arrest and sentence for persistent young offenders to 71 days or less. This group, comprising representatives from the Courts, City and County YOS, the Crown Prosecution Service, the Police and Defence Solicitors, developed a PYO protocol to improve local performance. The YOS already provides Pre-Sentence Reports (PSRs) for PYOs within 10 working days but has identified with partners’ actions to improve the time between arrest and sentence, which is now improving.
- Partnership support is crucial to our ETE work. We work closely with CYPS (Education), Connexions, Colleges, Training Providers, Ecotec, the LSC, the Youth Service and others to improve our ETE performance. The Young Offenders into School (YOIS) panel is chaired by the Head of the YOS and is a problem-solving panel of senior representatives from the YOS, CPYS (Education) and Connexions that deals with hard to place young people. The panel has improved young people’s access to education.
- The Basic Skills Steering Group comprises representatives from CYPS (Education), Connexions, Training Providers and the LSC to oversee the delivery of Basic Skills work within the YOS and the development of The PLUS strategy. This group has improved young people’s access to training and education and has promoted the use of PLUS learning materials in local schools and colleges. The Basic Skills team fully achieved its PSA target.
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