Improving Practice
Youth Justice Planning
The YJB, in partnership with YOTs, has developed new outcome-focused youth justice planning frameworks for England and Wales. They are based on self-assessment and improvement planning and YJB validation and risk-led support. The frameworks for both England and Wales consolidate all previous YJB strategic plan and improvement plan requests such as EPQA. From the start of 2008/09, the YJB will expect all 157 YOTs to submit only one plan annually.
YOT submissions will be validated using an interactive process between YOTs and our Welsh and regional teams, which will include reviewing the submission and other performance information, as well as visits to YOTs to meet with the YOT manager and chair of the YOT management board. The YJB will develop the validation process in partnership with YOT managers and key stakeholders before final validation.
We will decide how much contact is then needed based on the assessed risk to future delivery. We will only release the YOT grant after formal validation; however, this will only be introduced from the start of 2009/10 given the developmental constraints during 2008/09.
Where it is not possible to reach agreement on the sufficiency and robustness of the completed plans the matter will be escalated in accordance with the YJB ladder of interventions and could ultimately result in the withholding of the YOT grant.
The planning tools and guidance are available to download below, there is a frequently asked questions page that may be useful to you. Any queries about the tool or the systems involved should be refered to your Wales or regional YJB office where there is a designated super user. Any questions which your Wales or regional super user is unable to answer should be referred to the following email box - yjspmf@yjb.gov.uk - from which you will receive a response within three working days.
The deadline for submission of completed planning tool returns to the YJB is 11 August (which takes account of the delay in publication of the tool and associated materials). For further information about timescales and to negotiate additional flexibility, please contact your Wales or regional team directly.
England
Completion of the plan enables local authorities to comply with stautory youth justice planning requirements and the information will also support the requirements of the new local performance and inspection framework.
The youth justice planning tool for England is available in both Microsoft Access and Microsoft Word formats. The Access tool provides many benefits to YOTs which are not provided by the Word alternative, and therefore while there is no absolute requirement to make use of the tool, we would strongly encourage YOTs that are in a position to do so, to make use of it.
Click to download the technical guidance document for the tool [1.73 Mb PDF, opens in new window]. YOTs are strongly advised to read this guidance before opening and using the tool itself.
Wales
Completion of the plan enables local authorities to comply with stautory youth justice planning requirements. The information will also define the YOT’s contribution to the local Children and Young Peoples Plan and the work of the Community Safety Partnership.
The youth justice planning tool for Wales is available in both Microsoft Access and Microsoft Word formats. The Access tool provides many benefits to YOTs which are not provided by the Word alternative, and therefore while there is no absolute requirement to make use of the tool, we would strongly encourage YOTs that are in a position to do so, to make use of it.
Click to download the technical guidance document for the tool [1.73 Mb PDF, opens in new window]. YOTs are strongly advised to read this guidance before opening and using the tool itself.