Issue - meetings

To consider a report about Haringey Children In Care (CIC)  that are offending or  in custody. 

The Committee noted that following changes in the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act, any young person under the age of 18 that is remanded into custody now becomes a child in care.  Currently the Youth Offending Service manages support and youth detention accommodation and this is funded by the Youth Justice Board.  When the young people  come into care they will  require a social worker,  accommodation, and education arrangements  Discussions  had been taking place between CYPS and  the Youth Offending Team  to begin to manage this change and  ensure processes  are streamlined in order to reduce any duplication of work within limited resources.  The cost and responsibility for placements will be fully transferred to local authorities in April 2013(currently councils contribute to 1/3 of the costs). The funding formula  which will be used to allocate finances to individual authorities, removes  two third’s of the  contribution from the Youth Justice Board  and includes  the expectation  that  the need for YDA(youth Detention accommodation ) by 15% . There has been an analysis of young people in YDA (Youth Detention Accommodation) in Haringey and this reduction in numbers is unlikely due to the need to protect the public from serious harm. Therefore there is likely to be a shortfall in funding to meet the required number of placements.  Fuller guidance from the DFE was still awaited, meanwhile the service are identifying young people on short term detention plans and looking to secure places at colleges, recruiting specialist foster carers that will be further trained to look after young people on remand, and training social workers that will be able to provide support to this particular cohort of young people in care.

The Committee  were concerned about on nature of offences that will lead young people to entering  remand and  they were advised that high risk   cases  are subject to  a separate process and will involve a multi agency risk panel considering the best options for  the  young person going forward.  

The committee sought further understanding on the new judicial process as a consequence of the new Legal Aid, sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act and where the local authority becomes responsible for the care of the young person. It was suggested a time or flow chart could be provided to display this information and aid understanding. [This is appended to the minutes]