HMIP Inspection of Bexley's Youth Offending Team
18 January 2012
The recent HM Inspectors of Probation Services report has found Bexley's Youth Offending Team (YOT) members to be motivated and working effectively with partners to reduce the likelihood of serious incidents occurring, while acknowledging a range of other positive attributes about the service, the report recognises that there is still some room for improvement.
Cabinet Member for Children's Services, Cllr Katie Perrior said; "Our Youth Offending Team has a good track record of positive achievements.
The YOT team's day-to-day work with young offenders helps Bexley to maintain its current status as the safest borough in London. We have low first time entrants to the criminal justice system for young people, low rates of young people entering custody and low rates of young people reoffending. All of this shows that Bexley is working hard and achieving positive outcomes for young people who may become involved in crime."
Julie Fox, Assistant Chief Inspector for the HMPI, said "In Bexley YOT we found effective multi-agency work, particularly in safeguarding children. This was illustrated in a number of cases where the YOT and other agencies, such as the police, community safety, health and children's social care services worked together effectively to protect victims and reduce the likelihood of a serious incident taking place.
Whilst there was more work to do on this - particularly in improving the involvement of young people and the assessment of why they had committed an offence at this point in time, we were encouraged that the YOT appeared well motivated to learn from this inspection and improve practice in the future."
Cllr Perrior continued; "The snapshot of the service that the report was based on didn't fully highlight some of our achievements particularly our very effective diversionary work with first time entrants into the youth justice system. We appreciate the points made by the inspector and will take account of the report's findings as we continue to improve the service."
