Cautious welcome for Scaled Approach system

Under the Scaled Approach, which came into effect at the end of November 2009, a variety of assessment tools are used to calculate which sentences are most appropriate for offenders under the Youth Rehabilitation Order (YRO).

An evaluation of four pilot areas for the system that ran from December 2006 to June 2007, which has only now been published, found that the approach is backed by frontline workers.

"There is very clear evidence that the practitioners in the pilot YOTs considered that adopting the risk-based approach had resulted in better outcomes for young people and these outcomes were measured in terms of better targeting and tailoring of interventions and more appropriate levels of contact," the report said.

However, the authors of the report said that the fact they were not tasked by the Youth Justice Board (YJB) with gauging the success of the system in terms of reconviction rates or value for money constrained them in making objective assessments of the different practices adopted by pilot YOTs and identifying which were the most effective.

The report did, however, make a series of technical recommendations as to how the Scaled Approach should be rolled out nationally, which included the importance of accurate and consistent assessments with rigorous quality checks.

Since the evaluation concluded, but prior to its publication, the YJB has announced a review of the "predictive validity" of the assessment tool Asset -- the basis of the Scaled Approach system.

The Scaled Approach system has previously been criticised for having the potential to lead to different levels of intervention for young people committing the same crime.