Southwark Youth Justice Service (YJS) has received an overall rating of ‘Good’ following an inspection by His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Probation.

Interim Chief Inspector of Probation Sue McAllister said: “There’s a genuine community spirit about Southwark Youth Justice Service. From the staff to local volunteers to the children themselves, there is support for the service’s work and an ambition to succeed. Each child has access to programmes to help them develop and deter them from offending, and there is comprehensive support for them, their families, and victims of crime.”

We also inspected the quality of resettlement work – the key services which need to be in place when a child is released from custody, for example to meet accommodation needs – which was separately rated as ‘Good’.

The inspection found an impressive staffing arrangement at Southwark YJS, particularly around the recruitment of volunteers and those with lived experience of criminal justice. This provided the service with a diverse workforce which is supporting children through their supervision and helping them to achieve their goals, such as accessing education, training, and employment programmes – a key element in deterring children away from offending.

However, we found that work around children subject to cautions or similar (known as out-of-court disposals) requires improvement. We found several cases where the level of risk of harm a child may pose was not justified. We have recommended that the service assesses each child’s risk fully, rather than a single behaviour (for example, if the child is linked to knife crime).

We made four recommendations which we believe will have a positive impact on youth justice services in Southwark, including increased analysis and understanding regarding children receiving police community resolutions and a review of powers around deferred prosecution cases (known as Outcome 22).

ENDS

 Notes to editor

 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.

1. The Inspectorate uses a four-point scale: ‘Outstanding’, ‘Good’, ‘Requires improvement’ and ‘Inadequate’, rating specific aspects of each service and giving an overall rating.
2. 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). We rated work on resettlement separately as ‘Good’
3. The report is available on the HM Inspectorate of Probation website on 17 October 2023 00.01.
4. HM Inspectorate of Probation is the independent inspector of youth offending and probation services across England and Wales.
5. Fieldwork for this inspection took place in July 2023.
6. For media enquiries, please contact Head of Communications Diane Bramall media@hmiprobation.gov.uk (E-mail address)