Children's services chiefs hit out at youth justice cuts
Adam Offord
Thursday, September 17, 2015
Plans to make emergency in-year cuts of £13.5m to youth justice work have been blasted by children's services chiefs and youth justice managers.
The Youth Justice Board has been consulting on proposals to find £13.5m for the current financial year after being told to make emergency savings by the Ministry of Justice (MoJ).
As part of this, youth offending teams (YOTs) will be expected to cut their spending by £9m in 2015/16 – something that both the Association of Directors of Children's Services (ADCS) and the Assocation of Youth Offending Team Managers have warned will have a direct impact on youth offending services.
“The YJB grant has already been significantly reduced in recent years and some local areas have already lost up to 40 per cent of their overall funding,” a joint submission by the two organisations to the YJB said.
“There is quite simply no more fat to trim.”
The joint submission goes on to warn that, should the cuts go ahead, YOTs will face a wave of problems including a reduction in both quality and the quantity of services, compression and closure of services, and court order intervention work being prioritised over preventative and community-based work.
Alison O’Sullivan, president of the ADCS, said: “To propose further in-year reductions is unreasonable and will directly impact the delivery and effectiveness of services leading to poorer outcomes for vulnerable young adults.
“Savings of this scale cannot be made, particularly when these haven’t already been budgeted for.
“Government must recognise that further reductions to funding will have a clear impact on the local preventative offer and on what we may or may not be able to do in the future.”
Gareth Jones, chair of AYM, added: “The cuts will mean increased costs to the public in the medium to longer term in both financial and emotional and physical harm.
“We think the scale and thoughtless nature of these considerable cuts are doomed to backfire with ordinary people ultimately paying the costs. This is a strange way to incentivise success.”
Among the rest of the YJB proposals to make up the remaining £4.5m needed is a proposed reduction of £1.5m from staffing budgets for young offender institutions, and hundreds-of-thousands of pounds from underspend budgets.
The YJB has also proposed "pausing” the introduction of a new system of restraint designed to better equip staff in the secure estate to effectively and safely manage the behaviour, saving £800,000 in the process.
The new system focuses on so-called “de-escalation techniques” and the use of restorative justice, in order to deal more effectively with potential flashpoints in youth custody.
The joint ADCS and AYM submission goes on to raise concerns over the YJB’s proposals to save £400,000 by purchasing fewer beds in secure children’s homes and reclaiming £500,000 in underspend in grants given to resettlement consortia.
“We are very concerned about the impact of reducing the YJB’s contract with secure children’s homes,” the joint submission adds.
“This will remove the only guaranteed income that these homes have, leaving providers, largely local authorities, with difficult decisions to make on the sustainability of this vital provision.
“This is yet another example of passing financial risk from central to local government.”
The consultation period on the proposals closed yesterday (16 September).
