Agenda item

To receive a report on reducing re-offending of adults and young people.

Ivana Price, Head of Young People & Community Safety Services and Andrea Clemons, Head of Community Safety introduced this item.

NOTED

1.     Reducing reoffending of young people is a key priority for the Safer & Stronger Communities Board (SSCB) and Youth Offending Service (YOS) Management Board.

2.     The YOS in Enfield is located within Children and Family Services. It is jointly resourced by the Council, police, probation and health services to deliver a multi-disciplinary response and support to young people that come to the attention of the Criminal Justice system.

3.     The service is judged on its performance by accountability to the Youth Justice Board against 3 key performance indicators:

o   Reduction of First Time Entrants

o   Making sure that only those who need to go to custody go to custody

o   How the Council reduces reoffending

4.     The report provides the local context on reoffending and includes details of how the Council is doing against these indicators. Enfield has continued to reduce first time entrants to youth justice services and this mirrors the national trend.

5.        There is a small number of young people sentenced to custody, these are for very serious offences.

6.     The reoffending data is published by the Youth Justice Board retrospectively, the most recent data is in relation to a youth cohort worked with in the YOS in 2017. Reoffending is tracked for 18 months, post closure to the service. This is a complex cohort of young people with complex needs and requires a different approach and support to prevent reoffending.

7.     The latest data indicates that for quarter 4 for this cohort, reoffending was higher in Enfield than London and national average.

8.     Local analysis has been undertaken to better understand this cohort; the majority are young men, all come from a BAME background and the age range is 15-17 years old. Looked after children are overrepresented within the reoffending cohort. 28 young people who have reoffended have committed 81 offences these mostly being serious youth violence offences.

9.     A new Integrated Offender Management (IOM) approach has been developed modelled on the adult IOM approach. This will be launched at the end of April, £60K of additional funding has been accessed through MOPAC. The approach will involve for multi-disciplinary support for this work. There will also be a dedicated IOM police officer resource. Once young people have been identified as being at serious risk of reoffending through this approach, they will receive a range of additional support and interventions such as constructive activities, access to street mentoring, dedicated music sessions, access to a speech and language therapist and family support. Alongside this from an enforcement perspective there will be daily intelligence checks and enhanced surveillance where warranted.

10.  Adults reoffending is not primarily managed by the Council.

11.  The adults IOM programme follows on from an earlier prolific and other priority offenders (PPO) scheme. Which was originally designed around people who committed a lot of offences going in and out of prison on short term sentences.

12.  Reviews of IOM have recently been carried out separately by both MOPAC and the Ministry for Justice. This has recommended a change in the profile of offenders who are managed by the scheme. There is an expectation that the cohort will now focus on medium level violence offenders. The approach will be much more evidence based; including understanding which interventions prove effective against types of offending and offenders.

13.  MOPAC and the Ministry of Justice will provide each area with a core list of offenders from their records, Enfield will be allowed to build on to ensure that the local need is reflected for management of certain types of offenders.

14.  Improvement is underway on the way reoffending is measured, the reoffending figures from the Ministry of Justice have a significant time lag. There will be a different system which measures from the arrest stage and is checked on a daily basis working with probation and the police.

15.  This process supports the Home Office intention to introduce a duty to responsible authorities to tackle serious violence. It is likely that this will be introduced from 2022 or thereafter.

16.  The cohort for adults is being revised and offenders with higher risk levels are being introduced. Enfield’s current cohort is 52 managed in the adult offender management scheme; 94% male and 70 % white.

17.  The National Probation Service and the privatised community rehabilitation companies are reintegrating this year. It is hoped this will be achieved by June 2021.

18.  Although the Council does not run the adult IOM, the Community Safety Partnership in Enfield, of which the Council is a partner provides oversight of the scheme. One of the subgroups from the partnership acts as the steering function on this.

19.  The Panel can be provided in future with new figures once the cohort has been changed and also provide updates on how this is impacting on the level of offenders of this cohort.

Comments, queries and questions:

·         What is the involvement of the Cabinet Member in this work? Councillor Keazor talked about the wide range of work undertaken in this area. She seeks to identify areas where additional support is needed and lobbies to get additional investment, continuously working with Cabinet Members and officers in the council to highlight areas where additional support is needed.

·         How are women and girls prioritised in terms of strategy, this could possibly be a focus of the Scrutiny Panel in future and does the council look at how certain environments such as low lighting can provide opportunities for Crime? There is a Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy which looks at different ways to support people who are victims of abuse in a domestic setting. There are vulnerabilities on occasion in public spaces that need to be addressed. Areas are constantly being reviewed that may benefit from additional CCTV cameras. Parks and areas around schools have been prioritised. Examples were given of reductions in crime achieved since installation of cameras and areas being explored for cameras. There are approximately 380 community safety cameras across the borough and looking to install more. The police have been working with young people on areas that they feel unsafe and will seek to factor this in on future installations going forward. Examples were provided of initiatives, the Cabinet Member provided an example of NEXUS funding used for the Butterfly project which targets young girls. This is working in 10 secondary schools and Orchardside roughly 106 students have gone through the project.

·         There is a small number of young people receiving custody sentences and reoffending rate seems fairly high. Where are the benefits being seen in terms of funding received for young Londoners Fund?  Inspiring Young Londoners that was funded by Young Londoners Fund was launched around the beginning of the pandemic so yet to feel the impact of this other than positive engagement and diversion from risky behaviour alongside the council’s investment in the summer university programme. The custody figures have seen year on year reductions creating a low baseline, these sentences are for very serious offences only. Planning for resettlement occurs while the young person is in custody

·         Will an impact assessment of investment be undertaken? The new IOM project has a clear evaluation element and tracking of offenders. The project will continuously evaluated from the start. The Cabinet Member said that information will be provided highlighting the funding received and how it is being used during the Covid period. Since the targeted programme of intervention and support started, there has been a reduction of 39% in serious youth violence up to the end of January compared to last year and. This has been consistent for months. Virtually all of the targeted projects have continued during the pandemic. The approach to tackling youth violence must be sustained. Sustainable funding is an issue, structures are often set up short term for particular projects would ideally like to move to long term funding allowing programmes to embed. The Young Londoners money is primarily targeted at preventing young people entering the youth justice system in the first place and there has been a reduction in first time entrants.

·          A lot of Council strategies are preventative or early stage intervention work. Does this make the Council dependent on grants or could the council look at reprioritising funding? Officers advised that the priority is investment in preventative work, the challenge being that much of the preventative work is not a statutory requirement. There are is a range of statutory duties that the council must provide, where there is rising demand in statutory services these duties must be met. Significant cuts have been made over the last 10 years, if the council is unable to substantially reduce the statutory offer the only choice is cut back on the preventative services. The Cabinet Member will continue to lobby for funding the government, the London Mayor and within the Council. The Council is dedicated to investing in its young people.

Officers and the Cabinet Member were thanked for their contributions.