Youth Justice Plan 2007 to 2008

The plan reflects the Service’s commitment to ongoing improvements in its effectiveness and its central role within partnerships that aim to create safer communities and improve the well-being of young people across Leicestershire and Rutland.  The Youth Offending Service (YOS) engages with the Local Criminal Justice Board (LCJB), Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships (CDRPs), the Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements (MAPPA), Children and Young People’s Services (CYPS) and the Local Safeguarding Children’s Board (LSCB) to ensure its full contribution to local criminal justice services and to Every Child Matters. YOS targets are incorporated into Leicestershire’s County Council’s Community Safety Plan and Medium Term Corporate Strategy. Performance of the YOS contributes to the assessment of overall Local Authority performance via the Annual Performance Assessment (APA), Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA) and, this year, the Joint Area Review (JAR).  The YOS plays a key role in delivering the Local Area Agreement (LAA) outcome to improve life chances and secure better opportunities for vulnerable young people and makes a significant contribution to other outcomes in the safer communities block of the LAA. The YOS also contributes to Leicestershire’s Children and Young People’s Plan.

“Commits to work in partnership, sharing responsibilities and providing the necessary resources, to provide effective strategic oversight and direction to the Leicestershire Youth Offending Service.  Its direction will ensure that the YOS is a high performing organisation that uses the principle of effective practice to provide high quality services to children, young people and their families, with the principal aim of reducing offending, thereby making a significant contribution to safer communities.”

“Ensuring the co-operation of the mainstream services of the partner agencies through adequate resourcing, joint planning, shared objectives and a commitment to work together to achieve better outcomes for children and young people.”

Both these objectives have been met in the 2006/07 period.

The YOS has achieved significant performance improvements over the last 12 months, maintaining and improving its already high Key Performance Indicator (KPI) performance, producing much improved EPQA results and National Standards Performance. The whole staff group has engaged in improving performance issues.

Additionally, the YOS fully achieved the local PSA Basic Skills target by providing over a three-year period 250 young people with individual learning plans, basic skills teaching and accredited qualifications.

Notes:

*The YJB classifies YOS KPI performance by using a traffic light indicator system. Green – achieving or above target, Amber – Close to Target,  Red – below target

+ASSET is an assessment tool used to identify which factors in a young persons life put then at most risk of re-offending or at risk of cause harm to themselves or others

National Standards performance is now at its highest level.  During 2006/7 the YOS implemented an action plan to improve National Standards performance.  National Standards performance has risen as a result from 65% to 87%, moving from YJB level 4 to a level 5 rating ( level 1 = lowest, level 5 = highest).

The Effective Practice Quality Assurance Framework is a strong self-evaluation process devised and validated by the YJB to ensure the implementation of effective practice and continuing improvement in the delivery of youth justice services. The YOS undertook the initial self assessments for Substance Misuse and Mental Health in September 2006.  The YJB-validated score for Substance Misuse was 2.69 which was the 7th highest score nationally and Mental Health scored 2.56, the 4th highest score nationally. These scores provide strong evidence of the high quality of service provided by the YOS in these areas.

The final EPQA self assessments for Remand Management and Resettlement. are due for completion in April 2007 and so results are not yet available

An EPQA assessment has been undertaken in relation to our prevention work, which achieved a YJB validated score of 3 overall. This indicates that the preventative work is delivering effective practice consistently and systematically, by practitioners, managers and strategic partners. This put the YOS amongst the best performing YOTs in the country for prevention work.

The Youth Justice Board has moved from measuring recidivism over a 24 month period to measuring it over a 12 month period to bring YOS performance requirements in line with the Youth justice Board’s strategic recidivism objective. The YOS is required to achieve a 5% reduction in re-offending in relation to four distinct areas (Pre Court, First Tier, Community Penalties and Release from Custody) by 2007/8, when compared to a 2002 base line.

Recidivism performance has significantly improved during 2006/7 when compared to 2005/6. The overall level of re-offending is 32.1% a reduction of 11.8% when compared to the 2002/3 base line. First Tier and Released from Custody cohorts both exceed the YJB target of a 5% reduction. Community supervision and Pre Court cohorts did not meet the YJB target but did show significant improvements on last year.