Agenda item

1.            Ms Brennan introduced herself and explained that her role as Head of Innovation and Engagement included overseeing the performance of Community Youth Justice Services and creating and maintaining regional relationships with partners.  She presented a series of slides which set out the role, background and activity of the Youth Justice Board (YJB), some statistics to illustrate the scale of serious youth violence and the Board’s strategic response to this. She ended by emphasising the Board’s approach to the treatment of young people - ‘child first, offender second’.

2.            Ms Brennan then responded to comments and questions from the committee, including the following:-

a)    it was confirmed that the statistics included in the presentation were national, but figures for the South East could be provided, so the committee would be able to identify the scale of the problem just in Kent;

b)    Kent did not appear in the first quartile of statistics for serious youth violence so was not judged to have a sufficiently severe problem to have been included in the recent YJB Pathfinder reference group;

c)    asked to comment on the significance of ethnicity when reporting knife crime statistics, Ms Brennan explained that it was important to record ethnicity in justice statistics in order to highlight any areas of disproportionality.  Ms Brennan referenced the Lammy Review which identified that BAME (Black, Asian, Minority Ethnic) children were disproportionately more likely to be stopped and searched by police, and the Timpson review which identified that black children had an increased likelihood of being excluded from school. Ms Brennan explained that there was a need to know where disproportionality exists so the reasons and the impact of this could be understood and addressed;

d)    the speaker remained concerned about the likely public perception of how ethnicity was being presented in this context and asked if the Boardhad evidence of the social groups to which young people involved in knife crime belonged, for instance, if a higher proportion might be expected to belong to categories D and E than to A, B or C.  It would be helpful to be able to see a wider range of information. Ms Brennan explained that the YJB did not collect this information;

e)   asked what support had been offered by the Government to help the Youth Offending Teams (YOTs) support youth who were at risk of becoming involved in serious crime, Ms Brennan explained that the Minister for Youth Justice seemed to understand the pressures and that, whilst there was a reduction to the core youth justice grant of less than 1% to some YOTs, compared to last year, others facing particular challenges or developing whole-system solutions would receive more than in 2018/19, and that, overall, the allocation through the front line would be greater in 2019/20, in cash terms, than last year.  The government had announced several different funding streams to address serious youth violence (SYV) that local areas can apply for. However, Ms Brennan recognised that the short-term nature of some of this funding was not always helpful, and that the YJB supported longer-term investment opportunities; 

f)     asked how else the service could optimise its resources, Ms Brennan advised that joint working with all relevant partners was crucial, and, whilst this would already be happening in Kent, there would most likely be opportunities to further this work, so a combined approach of intelligence gathering, understanding and addressing the reasons why children committed knife crime and enforcement could be further developed in order to make the most effective use of resources available;

g)    asked if the YJB was aware of other areas where there was good partnership working, Ms Brennan said that the YJB had identified several areas where partners were working closely to address SYV, that 13 areas had been chosen to be part of a reference group and that the YJB were in the process of choosing areas which would act as pathfinders for work addressing County Lines.  These would be announced shortly. The aim of the pathfinders was that the learning gained from these areas would be disseminated nationally so all areas could benefit from an increased knowledge of what could be done to address SYV and County Lines;

h)    asked what links had been made between serious youth crime and child poverty, Ms Brennan advised that child poverty by itself was not included in the list of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). Ms Brennan said the YJB had a research team and she would ask if they were aware of any research or studies which linked SYV and child poverty, and would forward relevant links to the Select Committee;

i)     asked where the reference group of 13 Youth Offending Teams (YOTs) were placed, and how the pathfinders fitted into the overall picture, Ms Brennan explained that the 13 YOTs were placed mainly in urban areas where SYV issues were a concern.  7 of the 13 were in London. A list of the locations of all 13 would be sent to the Select Committee. ‘Pathfinders’ was a term for YOTs and partnerships which the YJB identified as having innovative practice, and who would be given a modest grant to possibly evaluate and to disseminate their practice and learning across the justice sector.  There was a range of pathfinder activity, and work was currently going on to identify County Lines pathfinders; 

j)     asked how the funds allocated to the service in the current business plan were to be divided and allocated, Ms Brennan explained that the same allocation formula had been used for the core grant, and this formula had remained the same for several years. Although there have been several reviews of this, there was a current ministerial steer not to change this.

k)    asked what effect the financial pressures on local authorities would have on the YJB and their front-line work, Ms Brennan explained that the Board could not compensate financially partners and projects whose funding had been cut locally, but would seek to support them as much as possible where particularly harsh cuts had been made, and could assist in supporting the YOT Manager to make the case for sustaining local funding levels.  Whilst the numbers of children on statutory orders had decreased, there was an increased complexity in the levels of need that these children presented, which was difficult to address effectively within this difficult financial climate. She added that the YJB had continually reduced its size and the number of staff was now a quarter of what it had been previously. This meant there was more funding to give out to local areas; 

l)     asked how local authorities across the UK shared best practice, and if Kent had something to teach or something to learn, Ms Brennan explained that the YJB shared good practice by requesting that YOTs submit examples to be placed on the Youth Justice Resource Hub. Kent YOT should be encouraged to submit their examples of good practice; 

m)  asked what the County Council could do to address knife crime in Kent, and what cost-effective initiatives there might be to reduce it, Ms Brennan replied that, firstly, it was important to understand the local picture and what may be driving the increase in knife crime. It may be that the increase is related to factors other than SYV and County Lines.  She emphasised the importance of joint working between the police, children’s social care, etc, and for all to share their intelligence to help and support each other. In terms of strategy, the YJB supported the ‘Public Health approach’, a model of multi-disciplinary working to address the root causes of SYV.  Trauma-informed practice was also important as it recognised the impact of ACEs and childhood trauma and its effect on a child’s behaviour. Ms Brennan further mentioned the importance of constructive resettlement and the need for partners to work closely together at a time when a young person was to leave custody. In addition, family work was vital as some families were very frightened of the consequences for them and their child from their child’s involvement in knife crime, so it was important to involve the whole family in finding the solution;   

n)    some areas were undertaking engagement with the private sector, including taxi firms and proprietors of holiday accommodation, with workshops being set up to help raise their understanding, particularly of County Lines and the need to be vigilant and alert relevant services of concerns. Whilst local businesses may need to be persuaded to see SYV/County Lines as their business, areas which were seen to have high levels of knife crime or SYV could, for example, have their tourist trade adversely effected, damaging the economic health of the county; and  

o)    the slides had outlined plans to establish data collection on children suspected of being involved in County Lines, starting in April 2020. Ms Brennan was asked why this useful data could not be made available any earlier than that, as surely some links already existed.  Ms Brennan explained that YOTs submitted data to the YJB via case management systems and that there was a range of different software providers used by YOTs nationally. In order to make significant changes to what was collected, new programmes would have to be written to enable this data collection, and this took time to co-ordinate across the county. It would also make sense to start the collection from the beginning of the year to enable full-year comparisons. Ms Brennan surmised that this could be one of the reasons for this timescale. 

3.            The Chairman thanked Ms Brennan for taking the time to attend and help the Select Committee with its information gathering and explained that a written summary would be sent shortly for checking and correction. He asked that she send the additional information requested during the interview to the Research Officer.