The idea, mooted by Youth Justice Board (YJB) chair Frances Done, is one of a number of ways budgets could be devolved to local authorities in a bid to reduce the high numbers of young people held in custody.
Done has spoken before of her desire to "incentivise" authorities to tackle the issue but has not previously indicated what shape that may take or how widespread it would be. She conceded the details of such a change would be complicated and may take one of a number of forms.
"We could devolve the whole budget," she said. "We could concentrate on big cities. If it were to take place it would be a very big change. It would push young offenders up the agenda of children's services across the country with those big amounts of money and big bills for custody suddenly appearing on local authority books."
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