Summary of latest approved plan
Chair's Overview
Introduction:
I am very pleased to present here Doncaster’s Youth Justice Plan for 2006/07. We have much to be proud of in Doncaster:
- A very successful YOS inspection as part of the Joint Area Review completed in November 2005 which has judged us to be excellent in one area and good in the four remaining categories
- Good performance against a range of measures
- Strong partnerships across both the Community Safety and Children and Young People’s agendas in Doncaster
- A new Council wide restructure commencing in October 2005 incorporating neighbourhood management and integrated links with key partners e.g. the roll out of Safer Neighbourhood Teams between the Local Authority and Police which are making a real difference to tackling crime in our local communities.
The Doncaster Youth Offending Service (YOS) is the statutory, multi-agency service working to prevent and reduce youth crime in the borough. The service is made up of staff from the local authority, police, probation, health, and the voluntary sector and includes a diverse range of disciplines including social care services, teaching, nursing, housing and drug specialists.
The detail in terms of the performance against Key PIs is contained at the end of each theme dealt with in Section D of this plan. There have also been improvements in the EPQA ratings for each theme thus far assessed but the most encouraging sign is that the re-offending by those involved with the service is markedly down. The re-offending rate within two years of sentence for those dealt with in 2003 was 11% better than for the same period in 2002.
There has also been a reduction in recent years of the numbers of young people entering the youth justice system for the first time. This, together with the reduced re-offending rate is leading to a considerable reduction in the number of young people going through the Youth Court. Most importantly there has been a 12.6% reduction in numbers of offences known to have been committed by youths between 2002 and 2005.
All children and young people referred to the YOS are assessed using the Asset tool in order to ascertain the factors which place them at risk of offending. This then shapes the nature of the particular intervention and the resources deployed to reduce that risk. The YOS also aggregates the results of all its Asset assessments in order to ascertain the prevalence of the various risk factors in the local area and this data is used to shape the range of resources made available to tackle the problem of youth offending in the local context.
The Youth Justice Board for England and Wales has identified 16 themes that are fundamental to the delivery of the overall aims and objectives of the youth justice system. The Youth Justice Board guidance for delivery plans requires links to be made to the five Every Child Matters Outcomes Framework themes and whilst the majority of the YOS’s work falls under the Make a Positive Contribution theme, the key actions cover all themes.
Priority Areas for work 2006/07:
Whilst we have evidenced very positive performance during 2005/06 a number of challenges remain for us. Our most recent inspection report is very positive about the work currently underway to prevent and reduce offending in Doncaster and flagged up many examples of good practice but it also points to areas in which the service could improve further. The main priority over the coming year will therefore be to implement the improvement plan arising from the inspection report.
Whilst youth crime has reduced substantially in Doncaster in recent years, the public perception remains that it is nevertheless increasing. If this perception is to be changed, then we need to take some of the work developed in relation to tackling youth crime and apply it in relation to tackling low-level antisocial behaviour, which causes high levels of public concern in many areas.
The YOS is a borough-wide service and is therefore able to take a strategic view of youth crime issues across the borough. However in order to improve the service further and implement the neighbourhood management approach across Doncaster the YOS is re-structuring its management team so that there is an assistant manager linked to each of the 6 areas of the borough.
We are also further developing our working arrangements with the new Safer Neighbourhood Teams in each area in order that antisocial behaviour committed by young people is tackled effectively. We believe that the YOS has some key strengths to bring to this work given experience and knowledge of multi-agency and multi-disciplinary work cross discipline and agency boundaries to achieve joint aims and objectives.
The Government’s Respect Action Plan - Give Respect. Get Respect
This will be a focus of work for us in the coming year. The Respect agenda covers a wide range of preventative and punitive measures and attempts to consolidate and widen the work it has already undertaken to tackle unacceptable behaviour in society. It identifies the need to go further to supplement a continuing and increased focus on enforcement with measures that deal with the underlying causes and factors which create a lack of respect. These factors include: poor parenting; truancy and exclusion from school; negative community factors such as living in a deprived area, and individual factors such as drug/alcohol misuse. It draws together existing measures and proposals, principally included in the green paper Youth Matters, and November’s white paper on education, alongside new initiatives and programmes for parenting and the community.
The Respect agenda will bring new funds for local areas to develop their strategies to include a greater emphasis on dealing with low-level anti-social behaviour. Some of these funds will be made available through the Youth Justice Board and the YOS will work closely with local partners to ensure that they are used in a way which is supportive of other local initiatives linked to the Respect agenda.
There is now a real opportunity to develop excellent youth crime prevention services as part of Doncaster’s drive towards safer, stronger communities. Working closely with the YOS and maximising on its status as Anti-Social Behaviour Action Area, the Safer Doncaster Partnership has already made significant progress in its aim to provide a balanced approach to addressing youth crime and tackling low-level anti-social behaviour. The Local Area Agreement revision that is currently underway in Doncaster includes the introduction of a borough-wide integrated youth engagement programme, providing early intervention, opportunities and support for young people. A key element of the programme is to ensure that the various youth crime reduction initiatives across the borough are co-ordinated and provide quality programmes to engage with children and young people at risk of offending, wherever they live.
As Chair of the YOS Management Board, I look forward to the continued success of the service as it meets these challenges and work undertaken by all partners to achieve a safer Doncaster.
Tom Common
Community Director, Children, Young People and Schools
Chair, Youth Offending Service Management Board
Later editions
Later editions of the plan will be published here as soon as they receive approval from the various agencies involved.
