The Corporate Director – Education and Family Support, submitted a report, the purpose of which, was to update the Corporate Parenting Committee on progress with implementing the Bridgend Youth Justice Service improvement plan which was developed following Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Probation (HMIP) inspection of Western Bay Youth Justice and Early Intervention Service, in December 2018.

The Group Manager Integrated Working and Family Support, by way of background information, confirmed that the Bridgend Youth Justice Service (Bridgend YJS) was a statutory multi-agency partnership that has a legal duty to co-operate in order to secure appropriate local youth justice services. The service was funded from a variety of sources including UK Government, Welsh Government and statutory partners (ie Bridgend County Borough Council, South Wales Police, the Probation Service and Cwm Taf Morgannwg University Health Board).

The Western Bay Youth Justice and Early Intervention Service (WBYJEIS) was subject to a full joint inspection by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Probation (HMIP) in December 2018, the findings of which were published in March 2019. The inspection concluded that the WBYJEIS received an overall rating of inadequate. The findings of the HMIP inspection concluded that nine of the twelve inspection domains were rated as inadequate, one was adequate, one was good and one was outstanding.

The Group Manager Integrated Working and Family Support advised that, on 19 April 2019, Cabinet agreed to the disaggregation of the WBYJEIS and that the new arrangement would be for the Bridgend’s Youth Justice Service to sit within the portfolio of an existing group manager within the Education and Family Support Directorate.

The service now continues to be subject to monitoring by the Youth Justice Board (YJB) and significant scrutiny from a variety of sources including UK Government and Welsh Government, he added. However, due to the impact of COVID-19 it was presently unknown when a re-inspection of Bridgend YJS will be undertaken.

A restructure of Bridgend YJS was concluded in September 2019. This restructure led to the service becoming a part of the Integrated Multi-Agency Prevention of Complex Cases Teams (IMPACCT) hub working closely with the edge of care teams. This move had provided better joint working, sharing of skills and resources and reduced duplication of work for children, young people and families. The restructure had also led to the creation of lead practitioner posts, which provided the service with the opportunity to deliver robust supervision, quality assurance of work and line management of staff. These were areas highlighted within the inspection as a cause for concern. The lead practitioner posts were recruited to in October 2019, with both lead practitioners in post in January 2020.

He continued by stating that Quality assurance work had commenced within the service. Feedback from this, had highlighted that there was an improving picture in respect of the quality of assessments. However, further work in addressing risk of harm and safety and wellbeing had been identified. In response to this, independent training approved by the YJB had been commissioned to support staff in this area. In addition to assessments, development of need led plans that are timely and address issues highlighted within assessments had also been identified as an area for improvement. Developing interventions and programmes that reduce risks of re-offending are also ongoing areas for the service to enhance, the Group Manager Integrated Working and Family Support explained.

The next few paragraphs of the report, confirmed how the above was being achieved.

A self-assessment of the Bridgend YJS was conducted in April 2020. Areas identified for improvement had been added to the Improvement Plan attached at appendix 1. Some of these areas of work were still in progress, he stressed.  Areas identified within this plan included the ongoing improvement of assessments, support plans, interventions, partnership working and evaluation and feedback forms from young people.

Paragraph 4.6 of the report however, confirmed how the Covid-19 pandemic had impacted upon some planned improvements being realised to a degree, though ways around this had been to a degree put in place.

Attached at appendix 2 to the report, was the performance framework report considered at monthly Youth Justice Service Management Board meetings. The Management Board was jointly chaired by the Chief Executive of the Council and the Cabinet Member for Communities. Terms of reference for the Management Board were attached at appendix 3, concluded the Group manager Integrated Working and Family Support.

The Group Manager Integrated Working and Family Support concluded his submission, by advising that some of the data attached to the report had been updated recently and he was happy to share this with Members, upon request.

The Chairperson advised that she had sat on two Youth Justice Service Management Board meetings, where she had been impressed by the level of engagement involving partners on the Board.

The Cabinet Member – Education and Regeneration advised that he was impressed with the trend of continues improvement that had been made since the Family Support team had taken over the service following the inspection and he had every confidence, that these improvements would continue in the future.

The Cabinet Member – Wellbeing and Future Generations, advised that she too had also been involved for some time in the Youth Justice Service Management Board and concurred that this was going from strength to strength. She was particularly please the way the Board was operating in innovative ways, so as to overcome the pressures of the pandemic, ie including social distancing etc, which meant that it was difficult to have close interaction with clients and young people.

The Deputy Leader referred to recommendation 13 of HMIP addressing literacy and numeracy skill levels in respect of young people within the system. He asked how this was being pursued and also, if it was being achieved.

The Group Manager Integrated Working and Family Support, advised that many children and young people here were doing well, but there were some that were doing less well. Previously a speech and language therapist had been employed. There had also been an issue that had compounded progress, namely that some of statutory school age, were not receiving through their education, the minimum statutory education of 25 hours a week. The local authority had therefore challenged schools they were being educated at on this, so that such hours could be increased. Some young people also had been involved in crime and/or had challenging behaviour. Issues such as these, had also hindered their progress on core educational attainment targets. There was also an Education Engagement Team now in place, that were filling any gaps in relation to the above, so more progress was being made and this would hopefully continue in the future, he added.

The Chairperson asked how the service was ensuring that children in the system were able to have access to suitable reading material, in order to encourage them to improve their literacy skills.

The Family Service Support Manager advised that this was something that was being pursued with the library services, more detail upon which he would provide to the Chairperson outside of the meeting.

In response to a number of points made by the Leader, the Group Manager Integrated Working and Family Support, commented as follows.

In terms of the agencies that formed the Youth Justice Service Management Board, he confirmed that these comprised of statutory agency representation as well as non-statutory. He was pleased to add that attendance at meetings and overall support was strong. Though there had been poor attendance in the past at meetings, from Carers Wales and Parc Prison. However, support from these agencies had now improved. With regards to support being offered for victims of offences and crimes as well as the perpetrators, he stated that this was in place, however, improvements could be made in this area of support work he acknowledged. With regards to capacity levels in the team to support the Youth Justic Service this was being stretched particularly in light of the service taking over the support of this on the back of a previous poor inspection (of the service). A further Social Worker had recently been recruited to strengthen the team, however this had been negated to a degree, as an Agency Worker had recently left the service. So though services were being delivered, work levels were demanding.

The Leader requested further updates on the service at future meetings of the Committee, by way of progress reports, in order that Members may be given assurance that all actions requested as part of the last inspection had been completed.

The Chief Executive concluded debate on this item, by confirming that though improvements had undoubtedly been made within the Youth Justice Service in recent months, there were still some significant challenges and pieces of work to overcome and complete in the future and before hopefully any pre-inspection which could come around fairly quickly. This however, was work in progress, he acknowledged.

RESOLVED:                             That the report and the work undertaken to date on the Bridgend Youth Justice Service Improvement Plan, be noted.