Agenda item

The Partnership received a presentation providing an overview of the Youth Offending Service (YOS) with a view to increasing awareness amongst CSP members of the structure of the service, key roles and responsibilities and an outline of the service offer provided. The presentation had been requested within the context of the serious ongoing concerns regarding performance in relation to key YOS KPIs, with the Chair emphasising the imperative of the service developing and implementing comprehensive improvement plans going forward in order to address the performance concerns.

The Partnership noted that innovative improvement work was underway within the service including taking part in a pilot project focussed on managing the transition of clients out of the service, the secondment of a probation officer, the development of a new assessment toolkit to assess the needs of service users to improve on the current national one in place. One of the aims of the new toolkit would be to facilitate the sharing of existing information held by different agencies with a view to promoting partnership working and enhancing good practice.

In response to a question, confirmation was provided that the YOS was currently at an early planning stage in relation to integrating services with the Integrated Offender Management (IOM) work stream and provided assurances that assimilating the model remained a key focus for the service going forward.

The Partnership queried the premise behind the allocation of YOS resources for the intervention team. Concerns were expressed regarding the provision of only a two day satellite service in the Keston Centre in Tottenham, with the remainder provided in Wood Green, in recognition that 60% of the team’s cases lived in the Tottenham area. Officers confirmed that the service had previously been permanently based in Tottenham which had improved accessibility for the majority of clients. It was agreed that YOS officers should review the provision of the satellite service in order to assess whether it was sufficient and whether resources were being appropriately aligned to priorities.

Officers were asked about the working links between the YOS and NHS mental health services, in the recognition that mental health issues were fairly prevalent amongst YOS service users. Confirmation was provided that some progress had been made through the introduction of an aligned mental health worker within the YOS assessment team, with the consequent result an exponential increase in the number of referrals to NHS mental health services. The subsequent difficulties in engaging young people with mental health services and ongoing staffing resource pressures in this area remained ongoing challenges.   

The CSP was provided with a second YOS presentation covering quarter one performance data for the service. A copy of the presentation would be circulated to members. Positive trends evidenced included the downward trend in the number of first time entrants to the youth justice system linked to a number of factors including the introduction of a YOS triage system, a wider general reduction in crime levels, improvements in the secondary education offer and the updated borough Census data. It was agreed that the rate of young people entering the triage system and the subsequent reoffending level could serve as an important KPI for future monitoring by the Partnership in exploring and supporting the efficacy of the prevention element of the work of the service, particularly in acknowledgement of the current difficult funding position. Despite the good reduction observed within the borough to the level of first time entrants, it was agreed that further liaison was required by YOS officers with their counterparts in the  LB Hackney, who had managed to achieve a lower level, to see whether any lessons could be learnt and share good practice.

The use of custody levels in Haringey, although showing a reduction compared to last year, remained the highest in London, particularly due to the correlation with the high reoffending rate in the borough. In response to the acknowledgement that there remained a problematic cohort of young people within the borough committing serious offences, officers advised that a benchmarking project would be undertaken to explore and analyse this group further and also to look at the work being undertaken in other local authorities, including Hackney, who were achieving a faster reduction in levels. An update on this project would be provided to the CSP. Work was also underway on a feasibility model for alternatives to custody, with a particular focus on education, an update on which would be provided to a future CSP meeting.

Rates of reoffending in young people remained a concern within the borough, with levels sitting 9% above London performance although it was noted that levels nationally had increased since 2009. The Partnership was advised that some discrepancy had been observed between the information on reoffending held locally by the Council and the official data which originated from the Police National Computer system, with variance including the numbers in the cohort etc. Officers would be seeking to undertake a data matching exercise via the Youth Justice Board, particularly as should the official data be verified, this would signify that some young people in the cohort were not being engaged with the YOS. It was agreed that the YOS Management Board needed to seek resolution of this issue and report back to the CSP Chair. 

In response to a question, confirmation was provided that in order to explore underlying trends related to reoffending a piece of work was planned to assess the impact of external social factors in Haringey impacting on the reoffending rate. Cohorts were also tracked and analysed on an annual basis to identify key themes including ethnicity, location, nature of offence etc. This and other innovative work including groupwork projects such as weapons awareness etc, development of IOM and casework audits would form the basis for a YOS action plan in this area.

It was advised that an external consultant had also been commissioned to look at YOS and its interaction with other agencies. The final report had now been completed and would be circulated to the Partnership. The findings would feed into an improvement action plan. The YOS Management Board would take the lead on overseeing service improvements, reporting into the CSP Executive and the CSP as necessary.

Although the Partnership recognised that significant performance challenges remained in the YOS area, the importance was emphasised of ensuring the general positive message of the achievement of an overall reduction in youth offending in the borough, now at the lowest level since 2002, was promoted as a good news story and one which the CSP could play an important role. 

RESOLVED

·        That the presentations be noted.