Mike Thomas, chair of the association, has written to secretaries of state Ed Balls, Jacqui Smith and Jack Straw highlighting concerns about the lack of cash for youth crime prevention projects after March 2008.

Thomas said he anticipated around 1,200 jobs would be "at risk" within youth offending teams across England and Wales, with many teams already reporting staff leaving because of uncertainty about the future of their roles. According to research carried out by the association there are 35,000 young people at risk of offending involved in prevention programmes across England and Wales.

"At the moment youth offending teams aren't going to receive funding and are having to put some sort of exit strategy in place," Thomas said. "It's crazy. Research is out saying about 3,000 crimes are supposedly committed by under-10s and there's so much talk about antisocial behaviour, yet work is going to grind to a halt as we have six months' funding left."

In 2006 the Youth Justice Board gave £34m to youth offending teams over a two-year period to develop comprehensive youth crime prevention strategies. Youth offending teams were also given 25 per cent of the Children's Fund budget to spend on youth crime prevention projects. In July Balls, the Children's Secretary, announced the Children's Fund was to continue, but Thomas said no cash is being ringfenced for crime prevention and it will be up to individual local authorities to decide how the money is spent.

A spokeswoman for the YJB said it shared the association's concerns. "Our negotiations around funding levels for coming years have yet to reach resolution," she said. "The investment in targeted prevention being made through youth offending teams is attracting a large amount of partnership funding and we are concerned that several other funding streams, worth around £27m, are also unconfirmed."

- Editorial, p17.