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Overall Performance 2007/08
National Standards 2007/08
EPQA 2007/08
Prevention 2007/08
Changes to Performance Reporting 2008/09
Scaled Aproach to Youth Justice
Key Performance Indicators 2008/09

How are YOTs monitored?
Youth Offending Teams (YOTs) report performance and monitoring data to the Youth Justice Board (YJB) for England and Wales. This data is submitted on a quarterly basis and compiled by the YJB Performance Team to create a comprehensive performance framework.

Key Performance Achievements 2007/08

Achievements in 2007/08 included:

An excellent outturn in the second YJB National Standards Audit with 98.4% compliance.

Achieved highest performance to date against National Standards compliance with an outturn of 98.4%

Maintained a level 5 rating for overall performance (this rating is calculated based on performance against the KPI's, National Standards, EPQA and Recidivism both outturns and improvements and is the highest that can be achieved)

In 2007/08, Sunderland YOS maintained its excellent position in terms of performance across the range of 14 key performance measures against which we are measured. Our overall score for the period April – December confirmed that we achieved the highest overall performance score (1st place in the national performance tables) of all 157 YOT’s in England and Wales, continuing to significantly out perform the regional and our family average.

Positive press coverage on a range of YOS projects including Intensive Supervision and Surveillance Programme (ISSP), Phoenix Fire-fighters Programme, On Track, and Restorative Justice Services.

OnTrack, a multi-agency team based in Washington that works with children between the ages of 4 and 13, and their families with the aim of intervening at an early stage won the North East Youth Justice Team Award for its innovation of practice. In the same category, the Wear Kids Looked After Children Project was a runner up and innovative practice by the highly regarded Phoenix Fire Safety Project and the Restorative Justice Team were highly commended.

Critical to the success of the YOS is the contribution made by our volunteer workforce. Through 2007/08 we have made excellent progress in ongoing developments in recruitment and training programmes for volunteers that has helped us to maintain this staff cohort.
 

Overall Performance 2007/08 
The graph below shows the overall performance of Sunderland YOS against each of the key areas within the performance framework.

Sunderland were one of only eight youth offending teams to achieve an overall performance Level 5 (Level 1 indicates a low performing YOT whilst Level 5 indicates a high performing YOT). This is calculated on the overall performance percentage of each YOT. Sunderland's overall performance percentage was 81.7% which was the fourth highest score achieved.

Of the 157 youth offending teams, Sunderland achieved a Level 4 performance against the 14 Key Performance Indicators. National Standards performance was also exceptionally high, achieving 98.4%, placing Sunderland in the top 4 in England and Wales.

The table below shows Sunderland's performance in relation to the family, regional and national average scores;

During 2007/08 Sunderland YOS achieved 88.1% for it's overall KPI performance achieving 100% performance in the following indicators:

Final Warnings
Victim Satisfaction
Accommodation
Mental Health and Custodial Assessments
Use of Remands
Custodial Sentences
Restorative Processes
Parenting
Substance Misuse

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National Standards 2007/08
National Standards – The first National Standards Audit was introduced by the YJB in January 05 (based upon the period October – December 04). This audit period data was used in the comprehensive performance framework until January 06 when data from the new audit period – October to December 05 was submitted.

For a full list of all National Standards that the YOS are required to report on, click here for audit the information (PDF 28k).

In January 08 the 4th full National Standards audit was conducted for the period 1st October – 31st December 2007. In the 2007 audit Sunderland YOS achieved a significant improvement in performance. The 2007 performance has been sustained at 98.4%.

The National standards performance score of 98.4% will stand until the next full audit is completed and submitted in January 2009.

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EPQA 2007/08
In 2007/08 for the financial year, the YJB required all YOTs to submit an Effective Practice Quality Assurance self-assessment on themed areas. In Sunderland this was Substance Misuse and Mental Health.

Each theme contains a self-assessment against 16 sections, all of which could score a maximum of 3 points and the overall score is calculated using the average score of each section.

Scores for the themes were:
Mental Health 3 (2.75)
Substance Misuse 3 (2.88)

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Prevention 2007/08
Sunderland Youth Offending Service has a number of Prevention initiatives in operation throughout the city. There are a wide range of services, including Wear Kids, Tackle-it, Mentoring, Washington Youth Inclusion Project (Yip), and Ontrack.

For descriptions of these projects please visit the Projects Page>>.

Sunderland YOS has been submitting data with regard to Prevention Interventions since July 2006. Recent submissions have observed impressive levels of voluntary parenting work with 50% (30% above target) of young people leaving a prevention programme with a linked Parenting Intervention/Order in January - March 2008. This is an improvement on the October - December 2007 figure of 37%, whilst July - September 2007 recorded 43% engaging.
Good levels of attendance in Education were also recorded at closure during these three periods with 79% 85% and 92% being in receipt of 25 Hours+ of Education per week, respectively.

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Changes to Performance Reporting 2008/09

From April 2008 the way YOTs are required to report performance to the Youth Justice Board has changed.

The YJB has agreed that youth justice performance reporting and monitoring will be aligned with new Local Area Agreements for English Local Authorities. Instead of the hundreds of performance indicators which local authorities were previously required to report on, the new LAA arrangements implemented a single set (198) of outcome-based indicators covering national priorities. The YJB has negotiated to have 6 of the current 12 key performance indicators included in the new National Indicator Set. The six indicators for youth offending are:

Recidivism - Rate of proven re-offending by young people

Use of Custody - Young people within the Youth Justice System receiving a conviction who are sentenced to custody

Diversity - Ethnic composition of offenders on Youth Justice System disposals

ETE - Young offenders engaged in suitable education employment or training.

Accommodation - Young offenders access to suitable accommodation

FTE - First time entrants into the Youth Justice System aged 10-17

The new outcome focused youth justice planning framework consolidates all previous YJB strategic plan and improvement plan requests. From 2008/9 YOTs will have to submit only one plan annually. This framework includes self-assessment and validation by YJB regional teams and also includes case sampling against criteria set out below:

Effective performance management

Workforce Development

Asset and intervention programme quality and completion

Disproportionality

Victims of crime and public confidence in the youth justice system.

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Scaled Approach to Youth Justice
The Youth Justice Board for England and Wales have announced major changes to the Planning and Performance Monitoring requirements for YOT’s. The YJB are introducing a Scaled Approach to Youth Justice which will compliment changes in sentencing proposed by the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill. The Scaled Approach to Youth Justice is a programme of work that will bring about a change in practice for youth justice services, supporting the introduction of the new Criminal Justice and Immigration sentencing framework. The objectives of the Scaled Approach are:

To develop a tiered approach to interventions that is based on risk (primarily of re-offending) and that supports the introduction of a new sentencing framework.

To ensure a coherent relationship between National Standards, Key Elements of Effective Practice and the new case management guidance.

To support case management as an end-to-end process, and improve practice in Asset completion, pre-sentence report (PSR) writing and intervention planning

Key Performance Indicators (KPI's) 2008/09
The YJB have identified six key indicators designed to measure performance in six different practice areas.

The Six YJB Performance Indicators in the National Indicator Set:

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