West Berkshire Youth Offending Team (YOT) has received an overall rating of ‘Outstanding’ following an inspection by His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Probation.

Chief Inspector of Probation Justin Russell said: “The children supervised by West Berkshire Youth Offending Team are thriving. This much-deserved ‘Outstanding’ rating is the result of hard work, dedication, and determination to support each child equally and deter them from reoffending – the service is a credit to the local community.”

Inspectors commended West Berkshire YOT for creating ‘a culture where everyone feels they belong and have a part to play’ – involving children and their parents/carers in every aspect of supervision, and continually looking for ways to improve. The inspection also found that the YOT provides good quality, often specialist, services for children to help prevent reoffending – including educational support to reduce school exclusions and mental health support, as well as programmes to help with substance misuse and deter the use of weapons.

The inspection also found that, through working closely with families, the service had identified a number who were vulnerable and had established an agreement with local supermarkets to provide food vouchers to some parents and carers.

We found that West Berkshire YOT were not complacent, despite the successes evident during our inspection. There is a healthy ambition to improve, within the staff group and the children they work with. As such, we have made two recommendations to the service, which we hope will assist in their ongoing improvement plans. Firstly, that the youth service partnership needs to adhere to its statutory responsibility to include a probation officer within the team, and secondly that they work with Thames Valley Police to address disproportionality and ensure children dealt with outside of the court process are assessed for trauma, risk of harm to others and wellbeing needs.

ENDS

Notes to editor

1. This service works with children aged 10 to 17. The YJS supervise children with complex needs and some in the care of the local authority.
2. The Inspectorate uses a four-point scale: ‘Outstanding’, ‘Good’, ‘Requires improvement’ and ‘Inadequate’, rating specific aspects of each service and giving an overall rating.
3. The inspection looked at standards of organisational delivery (leadership, staffing and facilities), their management of children serving court sentences (court disposals) and children serving cautions or community sentences (out-of-court disposals).
4. The report is available on the HM Inspectorate of Probation website on 28 March 2023 00.01.
5. HM Inspectorate of Probation is the independent inspector of youth offending and probation services across England and Wales.
6. Fieldwork for this inspection took place in December 2022.
7. For media enquiries, please contact Head of Communications media@hmiprobation.gov.uk (E-mail address)