By Joe Locker, Local Democracy Reporter
Nottingham is “struggling” with the number of young people entering the youth justice system for the first time – and is sitting “rock bottom” when compared to other cities.
The service, which works with 10-to-17-year-olds who have offended or are at risk of offending, is currently undergoing improvement work.
Following a three-week inspection in 2019, the HM Inspectorate of Probation, the service watchdog, concluded it ‘requires improvement’.
Youth justice services have been in place since 2000 and local authorities are responsible for providing them.
The service in Nottingham is currently working with 293 children and worked with 588 last year.
At the time of the inspection, figures showed the city had a high number of children entering the justice system for the first time.
The rate was 535 per 100,000 children, compared to the England and Wales average of 222 per 100,000.
During a Nottingham City Council Children and Young People Scrutiny Committee on October 26, councillors were told this remains the case.
Wilf Fearon, head of service responsible for the youth service and youth justice service, said: “As a city we have always, always struggled with first time entrants into the system.
“From as long as I can remember, we have always been in the bottom six in the country, but this minute we are sat rock bottom.
“It has always been a problem for us.
“Then there is the issue of disproportionality. Too many young black, mixed race young people are coming through the system.”
The council has been working to make sure fewer young people are criminalised as part of its work to improve its services.
In the inspection report, published in March 2020, Chief Inspector of Probation Justin Russell had noted staff were “motivated and engage well with children”.
There were two main areas of concern, including leadership and governance and the service’s work with children and young people outside the court system.
Mr Fearon said the bulk of the service’s work is pre-court and added “that is where we would want it to say”.
He said the service has been building on early-intervention work and a targeted youth support team has grown in size.
A focus is also being placed on supporting young people who have been excluded from mainstream schools and placed into alternative provision.
Mr Fearon said he was “extremely confident” the service could improve in its support outside the court system.
The reoffending rate as of August was 30 per cent, while the national figure is 31.1 per cent, which Mr Fearon added was a good marker to show how well a service is performing.
The chairman of the committee, Cllr Naim Salim (Lab), said: “I benefited from the community where we had community centres, lots of provision for young people which helped and direct youth into a position where we had people who aspired to be motivational people.
“Since local councils have been squeezed of funding, those provisions are no longer available, is there any kind of work towards sourcing something similar to that?”
Catherine Underwood, the director of People Services at the council, said it was a “challenging picture because of the financial environment in a lot of different services and sectors”.
However she said there would be less of a focus on what the council can provide, and more so on what partnerships with other organisations, including the Violence Reduction Partnership, can provide, particularly in terms of funding.
A full inspection of the service is expected again in the next 12 months.