Agenda item

To present the Youth Justice Plan for 2023/24. There is a statutory requirement to publish an annual Youth Justice Plan which must provide specified information about the local provision of youth justice services. This report summarises the Youth Justice Plan for 2023/24, with a copy of the Plan appended. The Youth Justice Plan needs to be approved by the full Council.

Councillor Howell arrived at the start of this Agenda item (6.20pm).

The Manager, Dorset Combined Youth Justice Service presented a report, a copy of which had been circulated to each Member and a copy of which appears as Appendix 'A' to these Minutes in the Minute Book.

The purpose of the item was to present the Youth Justice Plan for 2023/24. There was a statutory requirement to publish an annual Youth Justice Plan which must provide specified information about the local provision of youth justice services. The report summarised the Youth Justice Plan for 2023/24, with a copy of the Plan appended. The Youth Justice Plan needed to be approved by the full Council.

The Committee discussed the report and areas which were covered included:

• Effective interventions and the approaches to it from the Youth Justice Service in partnership with the Police.
• Locality delivery and how resources could be targeted including proven youth work schemes and a link to a reduction in anti-social behaviour.  It was noted that some of this work would sit with the Community Safety Partnership.
• The work being undertaken by the Early Help Service to strategically pull together available resources to ensure it served all children and young people across BCP.
• More information was given regarding the Turnaround scheme, including it was a national scheme which funded assessments and interventions for children on the cusp of entering the justice system and how it was being used locally including which intervention activities were being used.  Its limitations were also highlighted and how the Dorset Combined Service was overcoming this to ensure all children were treated equally. 
• The vision of the strategy, priorities highlighted, and terminology were discussed including its creation, why the priorities were chosen and clarification over why some terminology was used.
• Further details regarding the speech and language therapists, including how the success was currently being measured by feedback from families and children.  It was noted that more work was needed to consider how the impact could be measured to ensure positive outcomes for children.
• In response to a query about how the Youth Justice Service was holding its partners to account to ensure they were all playing their part in supporting the work of the speech and language therapists, including ensuring the resources were available, the Committee was advised of the discussions around developing pilot programmes with partners together with the work being undertaken by the Community Safety Partnership (CSP) taking the lead on serious violence duty which was going to consider speech and language therapists input into schools for children at risk of exclusion. 
• How the performance monitoring was undertaken was detailed and it was noted that the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) were changing this year, which over time was hoped would provide better understanding of the effectiveness of the partnership in addition to this there was quarterly Youth Justice Board assurance process monitoring.
• The Chair advised she would email some queries regarding some language within the plan.  ACTION.
• The potential risks detailed were discussed and it was noted that the need to recruit to the speech and language post to realise the aspiration that all children were assessed that the youth justice service worked with.
• The Committee was advised that there was an action plan which sat behind the plan and was monitored by the Youth Justice Service Partnership Board which was made up of a multi-agency team and some of the work undertaken by the Board was detailed.
• How support was provided to children, if a need had been identified, was detailed including individual assessment and intervention work and how it was shared with the families and appropriate partners, such as schools.
• The Chair concluded by requesting how the improvements in the intervention work could be measured and it was noted that this could be taken back to the Youth Justice Service Partnership Board for further consideration.  ACTION.

RECOMMENDED that the Overview and Scrutiny Committee endorse the Youth Justice Plan so that Cabinet can recommend its approval to the Full Council.

Voting: For - Unanimous