Agenda item

The panel received a report which provided an update to members of Children and Young People’s Scrutiny Panel on the second annual review of the statutory Youth Justice Plan for 2024-2027. The annual review provided insight into the key strategic priorities, progress and activities undertaken over the past year. The update was introduced by Matthew Knights, Head of Service – Youth at Risk, as set out in the published agenda pack at pages 83-138. The Corporate Director of Children’s Services was present for this item, along with; the Director of Safeguarding and Social Care, the Director of Schools and Learning. The Cabinet Member for Children, schools and Families was also present for this item. The following arose during the discussion of this report.

a.    The Panel sought assurances around Priority 3 and questioned what was being done about speech and language therapy and the correlation between people who ended up in the criminal justice system who had undiagnosed SEND, including speech and language needs. The Panel commented that the number of people with speech and language needs had increased in the report. In response, officers advised that the reason the Board set this priority was because the data showed that more needed to be done by partners to focus resources in this area. It was highlighted that previously the service did not have a speech and language therapist. Now every child that came into the criminal justice system was screened for speech and language needs as part of the assessment process. Officers advised that the uptake in children being diagnosed was as a result of more children being screened and that that it also reflected in an increase in the number of children willing to sit down with the Health and Wellbeing team and undertake an assessment. Officers commented that this was a positive outcome.

b.    The Chair of SEND Power commented that the Panel had received similar assurances two or three years ago, and she questioned whether the service having a speech and language therapist had just been put in place. In response, officers acknowledged that this may have been referenced previously in an annual report. The Corporate Director advised that, as the Chair of the Partnership Board, the reason she made it a priority was because there was a national issue around children not getting support or diagnosis in this area. The criminal justice system then became the last opportunity to diagnose them. The Corporate Director advised that speech and language needs tended to manifest through children with challenging behaviour in school and that this led to exclusions. It was commented that, in an ideal world, all children would have access to speech and language assessments through their primary school. The Cabinet Member echoed these comments and acknowledged that there was a significant amount of evidence that showed the importance of early childhood interventions for speech and language therapy. The Panel was advised that one of the proposals in the SEND reform white paper was the introduction of a reading test at age eight. The Corporate Director commented that she would like to see an accompanying speech and language assessment for children.

c.    The Panel commented on an apparent increase in South American children entering the system and questioned the extent to which officers were cross-pollinating data to identify trends in terms of particular demographic groups. In response, officers confirmed that these conversations took place across the partnership and that they had noticed an increase in the number of Latin American children within the youth justice system. It was commented that a number of these families had been moved into the borough from elsewhere and that the service was undertaking analysis around how they ended up in the criminal justice system. Officers provided assurances that there was some bespoke work being done, but that this work was ongoing and there was more to do to cross check different data sets and identify trends.

d.    The Panel commented on a seeming trend which showed an increase in young people feeling like they were not being listened to or asked their opinions, when completing the exit questionnaires as they left the service. In response, officers acknowledged that they had reflected on this as a service. It was set out that the cohort which had completed a lot of the questionnaires were pre-court disposals, who tended to only be with the service for a short amount of time. It was suggested that the fact that they were only with the service a short time, probably meant that they didn’t have much time to build a relationship with their caseworker.

e.    The Panel queried what support was being offered to schools to help them maintain pupils in mainstream schools, rather than excluding them. The Panel also sought assurances around what was being done to monitor schools to ensure they were not excluding pupils from the classroom internally. In response, officers set out that there was an education worker in the service who spoke to every safeguarding lead in schools and colleges, to try and maintain young people in mainstream provision. When a person came in contact with the Youth Justice service the educational worker would make contact with that school and advocate for them to remain in school where possible. Officers set out that there were also robust monitoring processes in place in order keep on top of the data. Exclusions were monitored by the Board every three months. The Panel was advised that the service had a joint protocol in place with the SEND department to look at every single child with an EHCP in order to make sure that they were being completed and reviewed within the relevant timescales.

f.      The Director of Schools and Learning commented that there was a real partnership approach in Haringey to reducing exclusions, because everyone understood that an increase in exclusions would increase the youth justice cohort. Assurances were provided to the Panel that officers did not think that schools were deliberately hiding exclusions by doing it internally. The Corporate Director commented that exclusions were something that could have a huge impact on a child’s life and so the service worked hard to reduce permanent exclusions. The Panel was advised that in 2027/18 the number of Black boys who were being excluded every year was around 30 plus. This figure was down to about 15 pre-Covid and the year before last, that figure was two children. It was commented that this reflected a whole systems change, which involved the Haringey Learning Partnership and the Pupil Referral Unit.

g.    The Panel sought clarification on what support services were offered to young people on remand. In response, officers clarified that there were a number of different pathways into being held on remand. A young person could be remanded into local authority care and at that point become a Child in Care and would be placed by the LA, potentially into a children’s home. The second possibility was that the young person could be remanded into a youth detention facility on a secure estate. Thirdly, a young person could also be remanded into a secure estate on welfare grounds. In instances where a young person was remanded into a youth detention facility, they would be allocated a Youth Justice case manager and there was a statutory requirement for the service to visit that child whilst in custody. This included monthly remand meetings with both Youth Justice and Children’s Social Care. The child would automatically become a Child in Care whilst on remand. Officers advised the same level of support would offered to every child regardless the route they took to be remanded in custody.

h.    In response to a question about exclusions within the Latin American community, officers set out that the spike was a bit of a surprise. There was no outlying figure within this cohort and it seemed to be as a result of an increase in Latin American families being placed in Haringey from out of borough. Officers gave assurances that they would continue to monitor the data for trends.

i.      The Chair of SEND Power emphasised the importance of working in partnership with schools and characterised difficult behaviour as stemming from an unmet need. It was suggested that when children wanted attention they didn’t necessarily distinguish between good or bad attention. It was queried whether those young people were brought into the conversations about exclusion, particularly if they were being triggered by the educational setting itself. In response the Corporate Director advised that the service had carried out an auditing exercise too understand if there were common issues. The Corporate Director had spoken to schools and agreed with them that they would call the LA if they were thinking about excluding a pupil so that the organisation could do everything it could to support them.

RESOLVED

That members of the Children and Young People’s Scrutiny panel noted the contents of the report and plan, and directed any comments and observations to the Assistant Director: Early Help, Prevention and SEND.