Inspectors raise concerns over London youth offending service
Adam Offord
Tuesday, December 13, 2016
Inspectors have highlighted a series of concerns at a youth offending service in London.
An inspection of youth offending work in Lewisham rated the authority's work in reducing reoffending as "unsatisfactory". ?
??Although the majority of initial assessments were sufficient, the lack of consistency in planning and review was unsatisfactory, it said.
??Lewisham Council's work in protecting the public, and protecting children and young people was also found to be unsatisfactory.??
"We found some good work by case managers to protect the public underpinned by strong assessments," the inspection report said.
??"As with work to reduce reoffending, however, plans were not always meaningful for the child or young person and lacked measurable objectives."
??Inspectors said there was some good safeguarding work undertaken by individual case managers with assessments usually including a "coherent analysis of the risk to child or young person". But it warned planning and review did not always reflect this??.
"The immediate sharing of information between the youth offending service and children's social care services about missing children and young people was not sufficiently robust," the report said. ??
"The provision of mental health services was good, but physical health and speech, language and communication needs were not being adequately met."
Inspectors also rated interventions to reduce reoffending as unsatisfactory, while governance and partnerships were judged to be "ineffective". ??
However, making sure sentences were served was rated "good".
??"The [youth offending] service made consistently good efforts to understand and respond to barriers to engagement," the report said. ??
"Engagement with parents and carers at the assessment stages was particularly good. ??
"Compliance work was carried out effectively, with some good examples of professional discretion to manage the sentence as a whole."??
Dame Glenys Stacey, chief inspector of probation, said: "Staff were determined and committed, and some of their work was impressive, such as getting children and young people into employment, training and education.
??"Some work, however, needed to be more joined up and more sharply focused so that reoffending is reduced and the public are better protected."
In total, 10 recommendations were made to the YOS, including better information sharing with partners and better planning.
A Lewisham Council spokesman said: "We accept the findings of this inspection report and are committed to making rapid improvements.
?
"Although there were some positive findings, the final assessment is disappointing.
"In response, an improvement plan has been put in place to ensure that progress is made across the partnership in tackling this complex and multi-agency service."