Consultation on the inspection of youth justice services

HM Inspectorate of Probation introduced inspection standards and the rating of YJSs in 2018. This was after a full and active consultation with YJSs and other youth justice stakeholders. By the end of 2024 we will have inspected all YJSs over a six-year period.

We inspect YJSs against 13 standards, covering organisational delivery, court disposals and out-of-court disposals and (since 2021) resettlement. Our current programme of youth justice inspection is due to finish in late 2024.

We must continue to maximise our impact, and the end of the current programme presents a timely opportunity for us to review our approach to youth justice inspection.

Our standards and methodology are comprehensive. We have a full and complete picture of the performance of each YJS at the point at which we inspect it. The youth justice landscape is ever changing however, and this brings challenges for inspection.

Such challenges include the disparate sizes of YJSs, the diverse funding arrangements and the varied approaches to delivering out-of-court disposals work with children and varied local structural and governance arrangements.

There are also different academic perspectives on work with children who have offended vary.

This consultation covers the detail of three aspects of the inspection framework: changes to existing standards, the addition of one new standard and the approach that we will take to our inspections against these standards.

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