Youth offending teams face fresh funding cuts

The Association of Youth Offending Team Managers told CYP Now that all YOTs have been written to individually and the vast majority have been told they face a reduction in resource, some by as much as 25 to 50 per cent.

YOTs receive their funding from a number of different sources. While a large chunk comes from central government via a grant from the Youth Justice Board, they also receive contributions from local councils, the police, probation, and health authorities.??

In November YOTs were subjected to emergency in-year cuts of £9m imposed by the YJB.

AYM said the National Probation Service reached its funding decisions for 2016/17 without formal negotiations with members of local youth offending team (YOT) partnerships. ??

It added that, as NPS is an arm of the Ministry of Justice, the cuts “appear to be a case of a central government department handing down the consequences of its own budget pressures to local services.”

?“Local partnerships will now have to endeavour to find the resource to make good the shortfall in NPS funding or else make further cuts to budgets,” an AYM spokesman said.

??“This decision suggests that NPS’ commitment to stemming the flow of young offenders into the adult criminal justice system is on the wane.”?

A government stocktake of YOTs conducted last year concluded that levels of grant funding they receive from central government can be “adjusted” without jeopardising recent reductions in numbers of first time entrants, and numbers of young people in custody.