Issue - meetings

Cabinet Member: Children, Education & Families

Forward Plan Ref: 2011/096

Contact: Tan Lea, Strategic Lead: Youth Tel: (01865) 202218

Report by Director for Children, Education & Families (CA8).

The Youth Offending Service (YOS) was subject to a week-long Core Case Inspection in February 2011 to make a retrospective judgment of the case work performance looking back over the preceding 12 months, as part of Her Majesty's Inspection of Probation (HMiP) national inspection programme of youth justice services.

The Inspection Report was published on 8 June 2011. The inspection focussed on 62 cases and was not reviewing other aspects of the service.

Inspectors highlighted a number of areas for improvement. 

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An Improvement Plan has been produced which reflects the HMIP judgments and the YOS is already implementing the necessary improvements.  a copy of the improvement plan is produced as Annex 2 of this report.

The inspection covered three key areas - risk of harm, likelihood of re-offending and safeguarding, with each area being given one of four HMIP ratings:

•  drastic improvement required

•  substantial improvement required

•  moderate improvement required

•  minimal improvement required

Although there is no formal link to Ofsted ratings, results are often interpreted as “substantial improvements required” being an equivalent “satisfactory” rating while services requiring “moderate” improvements are deemed to be “good”.

HMIP judged both the likelihood of re-offending and safeguarding services as requiring “moderate” improvements i.e. the equivalent of "good", the second highest grade possible. The risk of harm category was regarded as requiring "substantial improvement” i.e. the equivalent of satisfactory.

The headline feedback highlighted the following areas:

•  Timeliness and quality of recording, assessment and planning particularly in relation to    risk.

•  Quality and consistency of management oversight.

Once the improvement plan is agreed by HMIP its implementation will be overseen by the Youth Justice Board and the Oxfordshire YOS Board. There is no planned reinspection.

The Cabinet is RECOMMENDED to note the findings of the YOS Inspection

Cabinet considered a report setting out the outcome of the recent inspection of the Youth Offending Service and an improvement plan based on their recommendations.

Councillor Godden, Shadow Cabinet Member for Children, Education & Families expressed some disappointment over the inspection report which whilst not bad was quite average. She felt that although the Inspection had been process driven and inward looking it had been useful. Whilst the Inspection had found some good practice it had identified a need to strengthen management oversight and to clarify roles and responsibilities. She did wonder whether there was an issue of lack of resources. She referred to evidence of good practice in Bucks. She was glad that an action plan had been in place even before the inspection but suggested that it should now be built around the recommendations of the Inspection. She looked forward to seeing more detail in the action plan going forward.

The Cabinet Member for Children Education & Families commented that the Inspection had been process driven and had not looked at the excellent outcomes achieved by the Service. It had looked at how the process had been handled and recorded on a piece of paper. It had not looked at re-offending rates which were amongst the lowest in the country. Improvements could always be made but the Youth Justice Board had found that a good service was being provided. The staff involved in the service needed to know that and she recorded her thanks for their efforts.

Jim Leivers added that in terms of resourcing the County compared well against the national average  being in the top 10%.

RESOLVED:            to note the findings of the Youth Offending Service Inspection.