Reading’s Youth Offending Service “Competent and Committed” Say Inspectors
AN INDEPENDENT inspection of Reading’s Youth Offending Service has described the workforce as “competent and committed” with a good knowledge of their children and young people.
The comments were made following a recent visit by HM Inspectorate of Probation (HMIP) for a Short Quality Screen (SQS) inspection.
Members of Reading’s Adults, Children and Education Committee will hear details of the inspection at a meeting on 4th July. The committee will also be asked to approve the statutory annual Reading Youth Justice Plan 2016/17.
The inspection team, who visited in April, were satisfied the Youth Offending Service’s (YOS) self-assessment, which it had already carried out, was accurate.
Inspectors praised case managers for having a good understanding of why children and young people offended and said almost all pre-sentence reports were of good quality and magistrates had a high degree of confidence in them.
The inspectors’ report also said almost all intervention plans were good and case managers had access to a good range of resources, such as the substance misuse service, education and mental health specialists and a police officer based in the team who keeps them up to date with any incidents of re-offending.
Three areas of improvement were identified: prompt completion of reviews of assessments and plans, more training and support for less experienced staff and more consistent management oversight to ensure key tasks are not missed.
HMIP were satisfied that measures to address these issues were already in place and did not request a separate action plan.
The annual Youth Justice Plan, which is a statutory requirement, reports that Reading YOS generally performed well against national and local measures last year but there is more work to be done to ensure young offenders gain access to suitable education, training and employment.
Councillor Jan Gavin, Reading’s Lead Councillor for Children’s Services, said:
“I’d like to congratulate the Youth Offending Service for the many positive comments they received following their recent inspection.
“There were no surprises and inspectors were satisfied that the areas for improvement had already been identified by the management team and were being acted upon.
“However, the YOS are not complacent. While the number of young offenders has fallen dramatically in recent years, an increasing percentage of offenders have more complex needs which present more of a challenge to the service.”
