Inspection of Youth Offending work in Leicestershire and Rutland
The latest inspection report of Youth Offending work in England and Wales was published today.
Julie Fox, Assistant Chief Inspector, said:
‘Our Core Case Inspection of youth offending work in Leicestershire & Rutland1 was undertaken as part of our Inspection of Youth Offending programme. This inspection focuses exclusively on the work undertaken by Youth Offending Teams with children and young people who have already committed an offence.
‘Its purpose is to assess if the work is of a sufficiently high standard to protect both the public from any harm resulting from the child or young person’s offending behaviour and the child or young person themselves, whether from their own behaviour or any other source.
‘The inspection is based on a rigorous examination of a representative sample of cases supervised by the Youth Offending Service. Our findings are shown in the table below, outlined against those for Wales and the regions of England inspected so far. A more detailed analysis is provided in the main body of this report, and summarised in a table in Appendix 1.
‘We found an enthusiastic and committed group of staff and managers who were keen to deliver a high quality service. Some work is needed to improve the quality of initial assessments and subsequent planning for Risk of Harm to others and Safeguarding. Effective management oversight will be critical to this.
‘Overall, we consider this an encouraging set of findings. We are confident that if the recommendations in this report are implemented the improvement required can be achieved and sustained.’
| Scores from Wales and the English regions that have been inspected to date | Scores for Leicestershire and Rutland | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lowest | Highest | Average | ||
| ‘Safeguarding’ work (action to protect the young person) | 37% | 91% | 68% | 69% |
| ‘Risk of Harm to others’ work (action to protect the public) | 36% | 86% | 62% | 63% |
| ‘Likelihood of Reoffending’ work (individual less likely to reoffend) | 43% | 88% | 71% | 71% |
Download a copy of this press release (PDF, 290 kB) (PDF)
Notes to editors
- Read the full report (PDF, 546 kB) (PDF)
- This Inspection of Youth Offending (IYO) programme started in April 2009. Youth Offending work in all 158 areas of England & Wales will be inspected over the course of a three-year cycle.
- Julie Fox can be contacted via email (E-mail address) and on 07973 264412.
1Leicestershire YOS provides youth justice services for both Leicestershire and Rutland. Although Rutland cases make up approximately 5% of the team’s total workload, our random sample did not include any of these cases. As a result, all references in this report to children’s social care services refer to Leicestershire only.
