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An inspection of youth justice work with children and victims in Merton

Published:

Foreword (Back to top)

This inspection is part of our programme of inspections across youth justice services (YJS) in England and Wales.[1] In this inspection we have inspected and rated work with children and victims in Merton YJS across two broad areas: the quality of work delivered with children working with the YJS, and the organisational arrangements and quality of work delivered to victims. Leadership and governance, and partnerships and services were considered through the lens of the work delivered to children.

Overall, Merton YJS was rated as ‘Requires improvement’.

Staff at all levels of the partnership were kind, caring and committed to achieving success and progress in the lives of children known to the service. They took a child-first, trauma-informed approach to service delivery. Practitioners’ attention to meeting the range of children’s identified diversity needs was impressive. For example, they worked creatively to identify and support children’s neurodivergent needs. The quality of work with victims was a strength and interventions were tailored to individual victims’ needs. Leaders had made some progress in improving strategic oversight and direction of victim work, although they recognised that they needed to do more to enhance this. 

Work to achieve positive change across assessing, planning and delivery was a clear strength. Practitioners understood why children had become involved in offending and considered the children’s strengths and protective factors. They explored the impact of childhood experiences well and examined the structural barriers that prevented children from succeeding. Additionally, practitioners co-produced goals and planned activities with children and their parents or carers to maximise their engagement and progress when working with the YJS.

However, work to keep the child and the community safe across assessing, planning and delivery of services needed to improve, and we found that practice was variable. While the YJS had arrangements in place to keep children and the community safe, these were not applied consistently. Practitioners needed to pay greater attention to protecting actual and potential victims. Additionally, the service needed to apply a forensic approach to ensure that management oversight was effective, and the right services were identified and delivered to keep children and the community safe.

We recognise this was the first inspection under the new youth inspection programme, which introduced new inspection standards for work with children and victims.  We found strategic leaders, including the Head of Service, committed to delivering on these standards, motivated to take the identified learning forward, and passionate about ensuring consistently high-quality work with children and victims was delivered by the youth justice service.

Martin Jones CBE

HM Chief Inspector of Probation

Ratings (Back to top)

Fieldwork started March 2025Score 05/12
Overall ratingRequires improvement

Work with children

2.1 AssessingRequires improvement
2.2 PlanningRequires improvement
2.3 Implementation and deliveryRequires improvement

Work with victims

V1 Work with victimsGood

Recommendations (Back to top)

As a result of our inspection findings, we have made seven recommendations that we believe, if implemented, will have a positive impact on the quality of youth justice services in Merton. This will improve the lives of the children in contact with youth justice services and better protect the public.

Merton Youth Justice Service should:

  1. improve management oversight to ensure that assessment, planning and delivery of work consistently meets the safety needs of children and the community
  2. improve the quality of victim work that helps children better understand the impact of their behaviour on actual and potential victims
  3. ensure that sufficient services are delivered to achieve safety for the child and the community
  4. review the restorative justice and victims’ policy and practice guidance so that there is clear reference to Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements (MAPPA).

The Youth Crime Prevention Executive Board (YCPEB) should:

  1. prioritise strategic oversight of work with victims
  2. develop a clear approach to obtaining, interrogating and applying learning from data and management information about work with victims.

The Metropolitan Police should:

  1. formalise collecting and presenting consent data from victims to the Board, so that the partnership has a better understanding of this management information.

Background (Back to top)

We conducted fieldwork in Merton YJS over a period of a week, beginning on 17 March 2025. We inspected cases where the YJS had commenced work with children subject to bail or remand, court disposals or out-of-court disposals between 16 September 2024 and 15 November 2024. We also conducted 14 interviews with case managers.

We inspected the organisational arrangements for work delivered with victims and looked at cases where the YJS had received consent to contact victims between 16 September 2024 and 15 November 2024. We also interviewed staff and managers responsible for delivering this work.

Merton is an outer London borough situated to the south-west of London, next to the boroughs of Croydon, Kingston, Lambeth, Sutton and Wandsworth. It is made up of 20 wards and covers an area of 14.7 square miles. It has a population of just over 215,200, which includes 50,700 children and young people aged 0 to 19, of whom 23,900 are between 10 and 19 years old.[2]

Merton has a mix of ethnicity, culture and languages. Office for National Statistics data from 2020 places Merton’s global majority population at 68,000, making up 33 per cent of the population. Ethnic and linguistic diversity is reflected in Merton schools: 50 per cent of pupils are from Black, Asian and minority ethnic communities, 38.9 per cent with a first language which is not English, and 154 languages are spoken in the borough. The main first languages for pupils, other than English, are Polish, Urdu and Tamil.[3]

Merton YJS is a partnership made up of the local authority and the Metropolitan Police, Primary Care Trust, London Probation and Catch22. It also works closely with Safer Merton, Wimbledon Youth Court, voluntary groups and the Tackling Exploitation Team. The service sits within the Directorate for Children, Lifelong Learning and Families, and under the Head of Service for Adolescent Safeguarding. We saw some excellent examples of how the partnership works together during our visit to Merton.  We found strategic leaders committed to partnership working and understanding the communities they serve.

At the time of the inspection, the YJS was working with 19 children who were subject to a community sentence, two children who were sentenced and in custody, three children subject to bail support or supervision and 10 children subject to a community resolution or other out-of-court disposal. Of these children, 54.8 per cent were from a Black, Asian and minority ethnic heritage; 51.6 per cent had a learning disability or difficulty; 3.2 per cent were care experienced; 9.7 per cent had substance misuse issues and 16.1 per cent had a child in need plan. The YJS was also supporting 13 victims where contact details had been received by the police. Four victims were children, 62 per cent were Black, Asian and minority ethnic and 31 per cent were female.

During the period January to December 2023, Merton had a first-time entrant rate of 136 per 100,000 of the population of 10- to 17-year-olds, compared to 143 for England and Wales. Between April 2022 and March 2023, the reoffending rate was 32.7 per cent, compared to 32.5 per cent for England and Wales.

Domain two: Work with children (Back to top)

We took a detailed look at 15 cases where the YJS has worked with children, subject to bail, remand, community sentences, resettlement or out-of-court disposals.

2.1. AssessingRating
Assessing is well-informed and personalised, effectively analysing how to achieve positive change and keep children and the community safe.Requires improvement

Our rating[4] for assessing is based on the following key questions:

Does assessing sufficiently analyse how to:% ‘Yes’
achieve positive change for the child?87%
keep the child and the community safe?60%

In almost all the inspected cases, inspectors found that assessing activity for achieving positive change was comprehensive and analytical, with the appropriate level of detail. Practitioners consistently accessed information from agencies such as education, children’s social care and health. Additionally, they gathered information about children’s speech, language, communication and neurodiversity needs. They examined this information in depth and used professional curiosity to inform their assessment. This helped to achieve positive change for the children.  

Analysis of the child’s personal circumstances, family background and social environment was a strength in most cases. Practitioners had explored the impact of the child’s early adverse childhood experiences, trauma and discrimination well. This enabled them to get a fuller understanding of any current and past experiences that had contributed to the child’s offending and personal circumstances. Practitioners recognised the child’s diversity needs and analysed them well to build a comprehensive picture of how the child’s lived experiences had affected them.

Assessing activity explored the child’s strengths and protective factors, providing a comprehensive analysis of how to achieve positive change. This included asking children what their hopes for education were, and what they thought would help them to achieve progress. Analysis of children’s capacity for change and community integration was a strength in almost all the inspected cases. Practitioners focused on the child’s lifestyle, peers, positive use of leisure time, and living arrangements. This included asking children whether they thought there were structural barriers in their lives getting in the way of change and considering the child’s levels of motivation and maturity.

Practitioners were innovative at involving children and their parents or carers in identifying the reasons behind the child’s offending. This co-production ensured that the voices and perspectives of children, parents and carers took centre stage in assessing activity.

However, the quality of assessing activity that included a full analysis of how to keep the child and community safe was variable. Practitioners did not always provide a clear analysis or explanations of the factors that related to keeping a child safe. Similarly, they did not consistently undertake assessments to analyse what was needed to keep other people safe. The YJS had a range of mechanisms in place for carrying out this work, such as mapping, contextual safeguarding approaches and case formulations. However, practitioners did not use these consistently, which meant that they did not always recognise the risks posed to children and from children. Practitioners also needed to pay more attention to past incidents where the child had caused harm to others, to better understand possible patterns of behaviour. We found instances where this information could have provided context to a child’s behaviour and needed to be better analysed and considered as part of assessing activity.

Practitioners recognised some factors that affected children’s safety, such as the impact of excessive use of substances, a history of domestic abuse within their family, and alleged assaults on children. However, in a minority of cases, risks were not always fully considered, understood, or pulled together to form a cohesive assessment of the critical aspects to achieve safety. We also found instances where factors relating to both the child and the community were not consistently analysed or explored. These included children known to be carrying knives, associating with peers carrying weapons, or displaying harmful sexualised behaviours. More rigorous scrutiny and professional curiosity were needed, across all types of disposals, to keep children and others safe. 

In a small number of cases, practitioners were not consistently responsive to change or new information relating to safety. For example, when they received new information through mapping and intelligence-gathering about new incidents or changing circumstances, they did not fully review it to consider whether it increased their concerns about the child or the community. Practitioners needed to focus more on responsivity to changing circumstances, and to consistently recognise when this was necessary. In contrast, however, we did see some instances where new information was used well and responded to appropriately. For example, on receiving information about a child in a custodial setting, one practitioner not only recorded this but used it effectively to inform assessing activity. 

The YJS had strong relationships with its partners, and we saw clear protocols and practices to keep children and the wider community safe during our time with Merton YJS. Considerable work had been carried out to support practitioners to better understand harm outside the family, criminal exploitation and contextual safeguarding. Inspectors found evidence of this in some of the work with children. However, the service needs to take a clinical approach, supported by more effective management oversight, to ensure assessing activity is more consistent to achieve safety for children and the community.

2.2 PlanningRating
Planning is well-informed, holistic and personalised, focusing on how to achieve positive change and keep children and communities safe.Requires improvement

Our rating[5] for planning is based on the following key questions:

Does planning focus sufficiently on how to:% ‘Yes’
achieve positive change for the child?87%
keep the child and community safe?60%

Overall, planning how to achieve positive change was a strength. Inspectors found that practitioners had considered the child’s context, including their social environment and the broader family circumstances. The way in which children were actively and consistently involved in co-producing planning was particularly noteworthy, and practitioners also showed an appropriate level of skill and ability in engaging with the child’s parents or carers. This enabled them to collaborate in planning and set out shared goals. Practitioners ensured that planning considered the pace at which children could participate, and this laid down a firm foundation from which work could be meaningfully completed. The work they agreed included suitable timeframes, and clear sequencing.

In terms of achieving positive change, practitioners understood children’s strengths well and the aspects of their circumstances that created a healthy environment from which they could achieve and succeed. Additionally, practitioners understood the structural barriers children experienced. They prioritised planning activity to overcome these barriers and explore how children could build resilience. Furthermore, planning created opportunities for children to engage with new activities, build employment skills, and make use of services in the community that they had identified as of interest to them, such as recreational activities, boxing, football academy, gym and music sessions. Practitioners also ensured children got timely access to universal wellbeing services, such as the child and adolescent mental health service (CAMHS) and to services such as education. 

Practitioners considered how children’s diversity needs would be met. Inspectors found evidence of practitioners taking time to explore with both children and their parents or carers what might affect their engagement. For example, they discussed needs relating to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), speech, language and communication, and neurodiversity. Planning of work with other agencies was a strength and we found examples where multi-agency professionals’ networks were working effectively. Inspectors found evidence of timely referrals to the speech and language therapist (SaLT) and CAMHS. Practitioners liaised with key workers at residential homes where children were living, which provided them with up to date information to inform planning. Inspectors found several examples of effective planning that had been informed by children’s education, health and care plans. Additionally, they had considered what services the child may be able to access once their supervisory period had ended. This exit planning was effective and ensured that children were able to make use of services such as the pop-up youth centre facility.

Practitioners had made sure they understood children’s capacity to engage with potential interventions, as well their attitudes across a range of behaviours and their views on the impact of their offending. This helped practitioners to plan more effectively. Furthermore, they focused on children’s motivation to change, which was evidenced in the self-assessment questionnaires and some of the feedback inspectors received from speaking with children directly.

Planning activity largely highlighted how to achieve safety and stability for the child, as the building blocks for change. We found examples where work appropriately included the areas that needed to be addressed, and specialist services were identified. Examples included referrals to the Lucy Faithfull Foundation to consider signs of harmful sexual behaviour, personal relationships through the Spectra charity and support from a local LGBTQA+ group. We also saw examples of planning that set out what interventions were needed to keep other people safe. These included relevant exclusion zones, disruption activities, anger management work, knife crime, and boundary-setting. We saw examples where multi-agency responsibility was supported by strategic professionals’ meetings and agencies were clear about their specific roles. For example, we saw evidence of safety planning to manage episodes of emotional dysregulation in a child living in a care home.

However, the quality of planning to achieve safety for the child and the community across some aspects of casework was variable and needed more effective management oversight to ensure that this work was completed well. Planning to keep the child and community safe was less effective because of gaps in assessment. Practitioners did not always identify or analyse critical areas that affected safety; therefore, these were sometimes omitted from planning activity.

In a small number of cases, practitioners had not sufficiently considered what they needed to do to reduce concerns in relation to children’s exploitation. When practitioners did this well, there was evidence of effective mapping, contextual safeguarding approaches and case formulation, but this was not evident in all the relevant inspected cases. In a small number of cases, the specific needs of victims were overlooked or not considered in detail, which placed known and potential victims at risk. It is essential that the harm caused by children to victims is fully considered in the planning process, and we found that more attention was needed in this aspect of work.

While practitioners were responsive to change during planning in the majority of cases, in a minority of cases this was not consistent. We saw examples where insufficient arrangements had been put in place to manage safety for the child and the community when things changed. For example, when children committed further offences, practitioners needed to give more priority to planning what was then needed, particularly to ensure that the safety of others was not compromised. Work to support effective resettlement planning was not always consistent. We also found some examples where practitioners relied on previous plans without making them fully relevant to the new disposal.

2.3 DeliveryRating
High-quality, well-focused, personalised and coordinated services are delivered, achieving positive change and keeping children and communities safe.Requires improvement

Our rating[6] for delivery is based on the following key questions:

Does the delivery (and review?) of well-focused, personalised and co-ordinated services:% ‘Yes’
achieve positive change for the child?87%
keep the child and the community safe?53%

Practitioners were skilled at developing and keeping positive working relationships with children, parents, and carers. A healthy approach of upholding boundaries while taking a flexible and personalised approach encouraged children to participate and engage. Children and their parents or carers understood what practitioners expected of them, as they promptly recognised barriers to engagement. This proactive approach enabled them to resolve issues early and reposition work that needed to be completed to achieve positive change. Regular and purposeful communication with children, parents and carers significantly supported investment in the delivery of work.

Practitioners understood the context in which children were growing up and considered this in their interventions. This included the support children had from their families and the challenges they were facing in their social environment. Practitioners recognised what children believed were the strengths in their lives and what helped them to succeed, such as educational attainment and healthy relationships. They used these factors to help children build resilience when delivering services to achieve positive change. Again, their attention to addressing structural barriers was noteworthy.

In work with some children, practitioners needed to be more proactive in seeking different opportunities to support change. For example, one child had an internet safety plan aimed at limiting his online presence, but limited alternative activities were offered in place of being online. This was a missed opportunity, as social isolation was a significant risk factor for the child.

When delivering services to achieve positive change, practitioners applied the knowledge they had acquired about the diverse needs of the child well. In particular, they used the information they had received from the speech and language worker effectively to support engagement. They also used communication passports appropriately to support work to achieve positive change. Furthermore, inspectors found that practitioners were using their understanding of the child’s cultural heritage sensitively. We also saw examples where work had been completed with parent or carers to help them better understand their children’s neurodiverse needs. This supportive approach was confirmed in the feedback children gave to inspectors.

Work completed by practitioners to achieve positive change was generally aligned and coordinated well. Partnership working in this aspect of work was strong. In one example, a key worker undertook direct work with the child on masculinity, self-esteem, social responsibility, aspirations and goal setting. The social worker addressed issues relating to healthy relationships, and the worker from My Futures (education) supported the YJS practitioner to deliver sessions to achieve positive change. Reviews of the work were completed well and adapted as the child’s personal circumstances changed.

Work delivered to achieve safety for the child and the community was variable and needed to improve. On too many occasions, not enough work was delivered to achieve safety and stability from which foundations could be built to support the child’s wellbeing.

Services delivered did not sufficiently and consistently address issues of vulnerability, victimisation and exploitation. In particular, there were some gaps in the work to address harmful sexual behaviour and sexual identity. In some of the inspected cases, there was under-recording of actions that had been taken in response to safeguarding concerns. Also, practitioners did not always respond dynamically to new information about children’s safety, for example when concerns about exploitation or substance misuse increased.

In a minority of cases, the right services to keep other people safe, with suitable risk management arrangements, were not always put in place. For example, actions identified in planning were not consistently being delivered and responses to significant changes, such as arrests for serious offences, were insufficient. Not enough services were consistently delivered to ensure actual and potential victims were always sufficiently protected. However, when victim work was completed well, children made progress in understanding the impact of their offending on others. We saw evidence of this in the direct feedback inspectors received from children.   

It was encouraging to note that practitioners had made strong efforts to deliver services collaboratively with children and their parents and carers. This helped to protect children and the community.

Work with victims (Back to top)

We took a detailed look at nine victim cases where the YJS has offered a service to victims who have consented for their information to be shared.

Work with victimsRating
Work with victims is high-quality, individualised and responsive driving positive outcomes and safety for victims.Good

Our rating [7] for work with victims is based on the following key questions:

V 1.1 Is work with victims high-quality, individualised and responsive? 

V 1.2 Do organisational arrangements and activity drive a high-quality, individualised and responsive service for victims? 

Strengths:

  • The Merton YJS plan 2024/2025 identified a clear and strong ambition to ensure that the views and voices of victims were fully incorporated into assessment, planning and delivery of services. The voice of victims was represented at the scrutiny, liaison and diversion panel and the joint decision-making panel. It was also evident in our discussions with staff.
  • The Youth Crime Prevention Executive Board (YCPEB) had recently identified a victims’ champion from one of its members, a representative from the Violence Against Women and Girls agency. This was a positive development and will ensure that the needs of victims are given higher priority and addressed at a strategic level.
  • Attention to operational service delivery by YJS managers was strong. Regular meetings provided a comprehensive review and analysis of the quality of work that was being completed and what improvements were required.
  • Direct work with victims was a strength and interventions met their needs. The YJS had produced an effective route map containing what victims can expect and by when. Inspectors found evidence of this mapping being used effectively in work with victims.
  • The YJS was proactive in applying learning from inspection activity. Following feedback during our time on site, managers indicated that they would be setting up a monthly multi-agency group focused on work with victims.
  • The YJS had made appropriate revisions to the victims’ policy to improve the quality of work with victims. For example, it had provided opportunities for exit interviewing for victims and the consolidation of clearer risk assessments had enhanced the quality of work to meet victim’s safety and wellbeing needs.
  • The police officer and victim worker made timely, sensitive and personalised initial contact with victims. The workers took time to introduce themselves, explain the process and highlight what was available for victims. They made several attempts to contact victims, including phone calls, text messaging and email.
  • There was a strong focus on understanding victims’ vulnerabilities so that services could be personalised to them. This ensured that victims’ specific needs were considered when accessing or referring to the interventions available. We also found examples where victims had expressed concerns about their safety, and the YJS had explored the nature of their concerns then identified and implemented appropriate protective measures.
  • The YJS’s restorative interventions used evidence-based practices.
  • Effective safeguarding of victims featured in procedural documents. These supported effective risk management procedures.
  • Staff who worked with victims had manageable workloads and were given space and time to fully meet victims’ needs and wishes. All staff who worked with victims had received training in restorative approaches and had completed a range of relevant learning to enhance their work. Staff were highly motivated to deliver high-quality services to victims of crime. They received regular supervision. The victim worker was an active member of the pan-London victim/reparation worker group. This supported shared learning and provided ideas to improve practice.
  • Where relevant, victim statements were appropriately completed, detailing the needs of victims. The work inspectors reviewed showed that the statements incorporated the needs and wishes of victims well.
  • Services to victims were individualised. In the cases we reviewed, the needs of vulnerable victims were dealt with thoughtfully. For example, appropriate interventions were put in place to support younger victims.
  • Victims had access to a broad range of direct and indirect services to support their needs. These included reparation activities, letters of apology and explanation, victim impact statements, surrogate mediation, restorative justice conferencing and direct mediation. The victims’ directory listed a useful range of agencies that victims could be referred to. This was regularly updated and used well to signpost victims to support, such as the Young Londoners Victim Service.

Areas for improvement:

  • The YCPEB did not provide effective strategic oversight of the quality of victim work, and this needed to be prioritised.
  • The YJS needed to improve the quality of the management information and data on work with victims that it provided to the YCPEB. This needed to be used effectively to inform improvements where required. The profile of the victims in the YJS needed to be understood more fully by the YCPEB, particularly in relation to the broad range of protected characteristics of victims. Monitoring of consent rates needed to be formalised. This would enable the YCPEB to have had a comprehensive understanding of the consent process.
  • Work completed with victims was under-recorded and managers needed to ensure that management oversight was more effective.
  • The victims’ policy did not refer to MAPPA, or set out liaison arrangements with the Probation Service. To support effective protection of all victims and ensure the seamless transition of victim work, the policy needed to provide explicit and clear arrangements
  • The victims’ experience evaluation document needed to be embedded into practice and the learning from it used to improve services. The document had been introduced too recently to comment on the difference it had made.

Participation of children and their parents or carers (Back to top)

Merton YJS had a strong commitment to hearing from children, young people and families, and ensured this was facilitated in a meaningful way.

The council’s participation and engagement team, a universal service, worked with services and wider partners to ensure the views of children and young people were responded to, actioned and embedded.

The offer to children and young people included Merton Youth Parliament, the children in care council, the care leaver forum, the special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) youth advisory forum and a Young Inspector programme. When the council refreshed the children and young people’s plan, it carried out a borough-wide consultation, including distributing a survey and running focus groups across the community. The consultation focused on six key areas, with input from Young Inspectors, and included an area titled ‘Staying Safe’. In total, over 2,350 children and young people responded, and the findings were considered at the Children’s Trust Board.

The YJS considered children’s and their parents or carers’ views and reviewed them during different stages of the supervisory process, for example in assessing, planning and delivery of services. The service had developed a questionnaire that children and their parents or carers completed to report on their experiences. This was launched and implemented at the end of 2024 and was in the preliminary stages of development. Following direct feedback from children, the YJS provided children and their parents or carers with a QR code to help them access questionnaires. All feedback received was considered at an operational level of service delivery. More work was needed to engage the YCPEB strategically.

The YJS contacted, on our behalf, children who were working with the YJS at the time of the inspection, to gain their consent and enable them and their parents or carers to feed back on their experience of the YJS. We provided a variety of opportunities for children and their parents or carers to participate in the inspection process (text survey, one-to-one meetings, focus groups, and video or telephone calls). The inspectorate sent out six text surveys to children who consented and spoke with two children and one parent on the telephone.

On the text survey, one parent commented:

“The member of staff was proactive, kind, supportive, available and extremely efficient. There was a child-centred, sensible, thoughtful approach taken. I was updated regularly and the YJS involved me at all times.”

And one child said:

“They have helped me massively to think about and reflect on what I did. They have given me steps on how to move forward.”

The feedback provided by children and their parent or carers to inspectors was overwhelmingly positive. Quotes included:

“I got to have a say about the things that affected me, and I felt listened to.”

“The YJS worker gave me very clear communication throughout the out-of-court [disposal] period. She called me, emailed me and sent me text and WhatsApp messages. I was never left gazing into the sky and waiting for answers to my questions.”

“The YJS helped my son with handling his anger. He was a boy who would lose it so quickly. They did loads of sessions and helped him to understand why he got angry and worked with him to figure out ways he could deal with his emotions without kicking off. He also got excellent careers advice, and how to make friends who would look out for him. All the work that he did was tailored to his needs.”

Equity, Diversity and inclusion (Back to top)

Merton YJS had embraced a strategic and operational commitment to fully understanding and meeting the diverse needs of children, victims and staff. The service recognised the disproportionalities that were relevant in Merton and how it is essential to achieve equity so that everyone felt included. The service did, however, need to broaden its scope to better understand the needs of children with wider protected characteristics. Attention to religion was strong and links to the faith community enhanced effective community links.

The YJS plan for 2024/2025 clearly reflected a determination to address discrimination and prejudice. Tackling disproportionality remained a central priority. The data available to the YJS had highlighted the ongoing over-representation of Black, Asian and minority ethnic children in the youth justice system in Merton.

The YJS had developed a disproportionality task force subgroup (formed out of the YCPEB) that aimed to addressing the over-representation of Black, Asian and minority ethnic children in the youth justice system. Ongoing discussions about anti-racist practice and the impact of structural racism on children, young people and families was a standing agenda item at the YCPEB and subgroup meetings. Board members regularly discussed disproportionality, possible factors that might have been causing or affecting disproportionality and what could be done differently across the partnership.    

Merton YJS had partnered with the University of Bedfordshire to participate in a study that aimed to identify the extent and nature of disproportionality for different ethnic groups at the gateway to the YJS system. The service was in the process of engaging in interviews and case-level analysis of file data. It was anticipated that based on data collected, the study would produce recommendations for policy and practice to reduce ethnic disproportionality, by highlighting how decision-making in respect of diversion needed to change.

Merton Children’s Services safeguarding scrutineer and young scrutineer had undertaken work in schools about the safety of women and girls. One proposal in this work was to implement an adultification task and finish group with a very similar membership to the disproportionality group. It was therefore decided to pause the disproportionality task force subgroup and form the adultification task and finish group. This group was chaired by the police and supported by a Young Scrutineer, demonstrating the responsivity of the partnership to change the way it was working.

The partnership provided effective training on disproportionality to staff, enabling them to better understand structural and systemic issues that children faced. This also created an open space for sensitive conversations with children about race and discrimination in their local community. Following the last HM Inspectorate of Probation inspection in 2021, we recommended that the service recruit more staff with lived experiences that better reflected those of the YJS cohort. This was actioned effectively, and at the time of the inspection, the profile of staff was more reflective of the YJS cohort.

The quality of diversity work was a strength in relation to recognising and analysing children’s diversity. We saw examples where children’s speech, language and communication needs or ADHD were assessed appropriately, and practitioners adapted and tailored techniques to best meet children’s needs. We saw effective use of communication passports and liaison with court teams to ensure that children’s needs were fully understood, and that they were supported in court settings. We found examples where the language needs of children whose first language was not English were appropriate explored and supported, and where religion, cultural heritage and children’s identities were explored well. 

The victims’ policy focused on how best to meet the needs of vulnerable victims, such as children as victims, children with additional learning needs, and victims of sexual offences or serious assaults. This approach ensured that the lived experiences of victims were understood well, and suitable services were provided. However, the YJS needed to better record information on victims’ protected characteristics, to ensure work was appropriately tailored and the right services were available to meet their needs.

Data annexe (Back to top)

Merton YJS Data Annexe
(XLSX, 123 KB)

Press release: (Back to top)

Merton Youth Justice Service rated as ‘Requires improvement’ but is “committed to achieving success” – Inspection finds

References and further information (Back to top)

A glossary of terms used in this report can be found on our website.

This inspection was led by HM Inspector Avtar Singh, supported by a team of inspectors and colleagues from across the inspectorate. We would like to thank all those who helped plan and took part in the inspection; without their help and cooperation, the inspection would not have been possible.

[1] There are two types of inspections as part of the current youth inspection programme across England and Wales. Inspection of youth justice work with children and victims (IYJWCV) and inspection of youth justice services (IYJS). Further information about these inspections can be found on our website Youth Justice Services – HM Inspectorate of Probation

[2] Office for National Statistics, Census 2021.

[3] Department for Education, Spring School Census, 2023.

[4] The rating for the standard is driven by the lowest score of the key questions, which is placed in a rating band, indicated in bold in the table. A more detailed explanation is available on our website Standards and ratings – HM Inspectorate of Probation.

[5] The rating for the standard is driven by the lowest score of the key questions, which is placed in a rating band, indicated in bold in the table. A more detailed explanation is available on our website Standards and ratings – HM Inspectorate of Probation.

[6] The rating for the standard is driven by the lowest score of the key questions, which is placed in a rating band, indicated in bold in the table. A more detailed explanation is available on our website Standards and ratings – HM Inspectorate of Probation.

[7] The rating for the victims’ standard is derived from the scores from case inspection for V 1.1 and the qualitative evidence for V 1.2. Case inspection scores and a more detailed explanation of the rating process is available on our website Standards and ratings – HM Inspectorate of Probation.