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

Interim Chief Inspector of Probation, Sue McAllister said: “We acknowledge that Solihull YJS has undergone significant changes and challenges in recent years. Staffing was cut by 50 per cent in 2015 which put undeniable strain on the service. However, in the last 12 months the service has shown promising signs of recovery. Solihull YJS is benefitting from strong leadership and staff are compassionate, positive advocates for the children they supervise. Solihull YJS is an improving service which should be proud of the progress it is making; it is to its credit that it received seven ‘Good’ ratings across a number of standards in this inspection.”

During this inspection, we found evidence of activities that are enabling the YJS to learn from the experiences of children and their parents or carers. This has created a culture that acknowledges and values the voices of children and their families. There is a need to ensure that these views are heard at board level and this information is used to further drive improvements in service practice and strategic developments.

Inspectors found assessment and planning activities for children dealt with by the courts to be variable. Assessments to support desistance did not always ask the right questions to gain an understanding of why a child offended or routinely address the structural barriers that had caused a child to offend in the first place. In too many cases, activity associated with keeping other people safe needed to be more robust. Too often, practitioners relied on self-reporting which led to weaker judgements, putting actual and potential victims at risk of harm.

This inspection made five recommendations, including to improve the quality of assessment and planning work to keep children safe and to ensure that management oversight is consistently effective, so practitioners are clear about what they need to improve.

ENDS

Notes to editor

1. This service works with children aged 10 to 17. The YOS 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). Resettlement was not rated as there were no resettlement cases that fell within the inspection timeframes.
4. The report is available on the HM Inspectorate of Probation website on 19 December 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 September 2023.
7. For media enquiries, please contact Head of Communications media@hmiprobation.gov.uk (E-mail address)