INTERVIEW: Crime prevention is best - Sir Charles Pollard, acting chair of the Youth Justice Board

In fact, he got a bit sick of it. All his experience - which culminated in his appointment as chief constable of Thames Valley Police - has convinced him that more should be done to stop children getting into crime.

That is why, five years ago, he was appointed to the Youth Justice Board, the quango charged with reducing youth crime.

"I have spent my whole career fighting for better ways of dealing with youngsters who get caught up in crime," he says. "As a police officer I got fed up trying to pick up the pieces after youngsters committed a crime, rather than helping to stop them committing it in the first place. That is why the work of the Youth Justice Board is so important."

After the resignation of board chairman Lord Warner - when he was made a government minister - Pollard was appointed acting chairman. He will hold the fort until April when Rod Morgan takes over.

Pollard is passionate about the aims of the Youth Justice Board and the youth offending teams that work to prevent reoffending at local authority level. He is keeping a wary eye on children's trusts, which some fear could gobble up the teams.

"If the teams were broken up and merged with other agencies so they lost their identity and special position; if team staff just went to mainstream services - that would be a disaster," he says. "It would put us back to the situation where youngsters who offended often missed out on the services they needed.

"Ministers have made it clear the presumption will be that youth offending teams will stay outside children's trusts unless local circumstances make it desirable they come within the boundaries of the trust. But there are local situations where they are thinking this could happen."

While youth offending teams may lose their independence in some areas, he hopes the same does not happen to the board. He wants the board to remain the responsibility of the Home Office rather than reporting to the department of children's minister Margaret Hodge.

Hodge is reportedly getting anxious about the knock-on effects of the board's decision to reduce the number of beds it commissions from local authority secure children's homes.

Last week Children Now revealed the board was ending its contracts with six units. Without the offenders' beds, the centres will have to rely completely on welfare cases - perhaps making them financially unviable.

One of the six centres will close in June and others may follow.

Pollard accepts that the board's policy has its downsides - on the provision of welfare beds and on the children placed in secure training units who may have to live further from home.

"Taking on more beds in new secure training centres means there is a small reduction in the number of local authority placements in a year," he says. "The downside of that, in some cases, is that children will have to travel further from their home. On the other hand, this is balanced out by quality facilities and better care."

He refutes the suggestion that local authority homes are better equipped for dealing with children at risk. "The reality is that secure training centres can sometimes provide a higher quality of care," he says.

Of all the changes happening to children's services, Pollard hopes the greatest will be more understanding between those who work in welfare and those in justice. "Justice practitioners need to be aware of the welfare needs of children, just as people in the welfare field need to be aware of the justice implications when youngsters commit crime," he says.

"A child who drifts into crime will spend the rest of their lives in and out of custody. We must all, in welfare and justice, seek to reduce the number of children who get into difficulties."

BACKGROUND - Committed to helping young offenders

- Sir Charles Pollard was chief constable of Thames Valley Police for 11 years until February 2002, following service in London and Sussex

- He is now chairman of the Justice Research Consortium, a multi-agency partnership working to develop and test innovations for improving criminal justice in the UK

- Pollard chairs the Youth Justice Board's youth crime prevention committee, communications committee and the restorative justice sub-committee.