Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 2
2
Accepted
The Ministry and HMPPS do not have a coherent strategy for improving outcomes for children...
Recommendation
The Ministry and HMPPS do not have a coherent strategy for improving outcomes for children in custody or to meet the expected increase in demand for places. The number of children in custody is expected to more than double by 2024 and there is a risk that the Ministry and HMPPS will not have appropriate accommodation for some children’s needs. The Ministry has a vision to be more outcomes-led to drive up standards and performance, with £60 million committed to the Turnaround programme focused on early intervention. Realising its vision will require joint working, including with other central government departments and local authority youth offending teams. Yet the Ministry does not have an overall strategy for youth justice. To help realise its vision, the Ministry is intending to develop provision for children in various ways, including by improving YOI and STC provision, trialling a secure school as a ‘pathfinder’, and possibly by reopening Rainsbrook STC. But the Ministry and HMPPS are focusing their efforts on these individual projects, without a clear and convincing overall strategy. Recommendation: The Ministry should set out clearly its strategy to improve outcomes for children through early intervention and improvements to the youth custodial estate.
Government Response Summary
The government agrees to drive and deliver improvements across the youth justice system, including early intervention and custody improvements. It announced investment in early intervention and community-based support, including a 9.8% uplift in funding to Youth Offending Teams and a new ‘Turnaround’ programme.
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government
Accepted
The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. Recommendation implemented The government is driving and delivering improvements across the youth justice system, from early intervention to custody. In May 2022, the government announced a substantial investment in early intervention and community-based support. The Ministry of Justice provided a 9.8% uplift in funding to Youth Offending Teams (YOTs) in 2022-23 to provide them with the resources and capacity to work with children and address the underlying causes of their offending behaviour. This involves working across other parts of local support services to address issues related to mental health, exclusion from school, an unstable home life or any of the other challenges that can lead to children entering the youth justice system. The government also announced a new ‘Turnaround’ programme designed to work with children on the cusp of offending, before they would normally get support from YOTs. These steps and other interventions are aimed to reduce the number of children in the youth justice system, particularly in custody. The first secure school at Medway, run by Oasis, will be an innovative new model of youth custody that embeds education and health at its heart. This approach is designed to improve outcomes for children in custody and to protect the public by reducing the likelihood of reoffending. This model will be carefully evaluated to ensure that the structure of the future custodial estate best reflects the evidence available. Preliminary scoping work on a potential second secure school will commence in Autumn 2022. But ahead of this, the government is seeking to improve all parts of the youth custodial estate by: • embedding ‘SECURE STAIRS’ (a trauma-informed approach to care, co-designed with NHS England) to all establishments and staff training, • making the workforce even more skilled in working with children (as of May 2022, 239 had completed a foundation degree in youth justice), • using smaller units with higher staff-to-child ratios to provide more tailored and 1-2-1 support, and • piloting new approaches to the resettlement of children leaving custody. The government considers that, put together, these steps and this strategy should deliver a step-change in the performance of the youth justice and youth custodial estate.