Agenda item

To update the Committee on the progress of Blackpool’s Youth Justice Service improvement journey.

Ms Sara McCartan, Head of the Adolescent Service presented a report outlining the feedback from a recent inspection of the Youth Justice Service. She reported that the service had been inspected by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Probation (HMIP) during May and June 2021 and that the service had been rated ‘Good’ and in three aspects ‘Outstanding’. The Inspectorate had worked jointly with partner inspectors from policing, health, social care and education to undertake the inspection.

Ms McCartan summarised the six recommendations which had been made by HMIP following the inspection and which aimed to further improve the service:

·       Evaluate the effectiveness of interventions to ensure they are meeting children’s needs and reducing re-offending.

·       Provide thorough and effective initial assessment of children’s health and educational needs, including communication skills and dyslexia.

·       Reduce the unacceptably high NEET (not in education, training or employment) rates for the over-16 caseload by getting more children into further education provision and vocational training, including access to services where children can gain the personal, life and social skills they need to work towards employment.

·       Ensure that in all children’s records there is a plan to keep other people safe and contingency planning if issues in the child’s life increase the likelihood of harmful behaviour.

·       Where risk to the child’s safety or wellbeing is identified, put in place clear contingency planning for circumstances where the risk may increase.

·       Where risk to other people is identified, put in place clear contingency planning for circumstances where the risk may increase.

The Committee was informed that the HMIP recommendations had been incorporated into the revised Youth Justice improvement plan and that the plan would continue to be monitored by the service and bi-monthly via the Executive Board.

Ms McCartan reported that the Youth Justice Executive and Shadow Board had held a Development Day on 26 January 2022 with the aim being to further strengthen the service’s partnership and problem solving in order to achieve consistently positive outcomes for all our children and to create a 2022 development plan to get the Youth Justice Service (YJS) to Outstanding. The event had originally been hoped to be held in person at the Winter Gardens but due to continuing Covid restrictions, the decision had been made to hold it virtually. The Committee extended its congratulation to the YJS for the progress made and supported its aims of striving towards Outstanding.

The Committee noted the disappointingly high number of our children presenting as Not in Employment, Education or Training (NEET) and sought assurance that this would remain an area of continued focus for improvement. Ms McCartan confirmed this to be the case and outlined a number of actions being implemented to help address the issue, which included:

·       An Employment and Skills Board had been established with a wide range of partners;

·       A strategy was to be co-produced with youth advisers to identify a joined up approach to reducing NEET figures;

·       Close working with the Council’s wholly owned companies was in place to identify employment and training opportunities for our young people;

·       Confidence building and support to develop basic life skills were being provided to young people to further improve their abilities to succeed with training or employment;

·       Supportive employers were being contacted to seek out any available opportunities to work with them;

·       Officers were seeking out examples of best practice from other local authorities, with the specific examples of Salford and Stockport being discussed. Ms McCartan was hopeful that physical visits to other authorities could soon be arranged;

·       Increased liaison with Blackpool and the Fylde College was in place to offer better support around the transition from school to college.

The Committee requested that Members be kept informed of progress and that regular updates be provided going forward.

The Committee agreed: To receive a further update on the Youth Justice Service at a future meeting.