An inspection of youth justice work with children and victims in Leicester City

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 Leicester City Children and Young People’s Justice Service (CYPJS) across two broad areas: the quality of work done with children working with the YJS and the quality of work done with victims.

Overall, Leicester City CYPJS was rated as ‘Requires improvement’.

Staff and managers were skilled and motivated to secure positive outcomes for children, families, and victims. We found strong work to achieve positive change across assessing, planning and delivery. Practitioners considered children’s strengths and knew children and their families well. We saw consistent practice in identifying children’s previous trauma and practitioners showed care in their approach when considering children’s lived experiences. As a result, practitioners had a better understanding of the children and were able to relate their past experiences to their current behaviour. Staff were committed to addressing disproportionality. They often co-produced plans and agreed activities with children and their parents or carers to encourage their engagement and ensure progress.

Relationships with many partnership staff were positive and there was a focus on securing education, training and employment opportunities for children. However, staff did not consistently identify children’s speech, language and communication needs. There was also no seconded probation officer, which meant that practitioners lacked knowledge of key individuals in children’s lives, as well as their relationship with Probation’s statutory victim services.

Work to keep the child and the community safe across assessing, planning and delivery of services needed to improve. While the service had some arrangements in place to keep children and the community safe, these were applied inconsistently. We found examples where staff had not assessed information about children’s past behaviour when considering their risk to the community and had not reviewed planning activity in response to potential increased risks to children’s safety. There were also examples of missed opportunities to consider victims’ views, consider restorative justice approaches and keep actual and potential victims safe.

Service leaders acknowledged that they need to prioritise the strategic oversight and organisational structure of work with victims, and to develop an enhanced offer based on analysis, evaluation and feedback from victims. The CYPJS understood the importance of high-quality provision for victims and were passionate and committed to improving their offer. This inspection makes a number of recommendations to enable the YJS to improve further.

Martin Jones CBE

HM Chief Inspector of Probation

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Ratings (Back to top)

Fieldwork started March 2025

Score 3/12

Overall rating

Requires improvement

Work with children

2.1 Assessing	Inadequate
2.2 Planning	Requires improvement
2.3 Implementation and delivery	Requires improvement

Work with victims

V1 Work with victims

Requires improvement

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Recommendations (Back to top)

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

Leicester City Children and Young People’s Justice Service should:

1. improve assessing, planning, and delivery to ensure consistent and high-quality operational activity to keep children and communities safe
2. ensure that CYPJS managers provide consistent and effective management oversight of the assessing, planning and delivery of work to keep children and communities safe
3. make sure that children supervised by the service are assessed for, and have access to, specific services that meet their speech, language and communication needs.

Leicester City Youth Justice Management Board should:

4. prioritise the strategic oversight of work with victims and ensure there is accurate recording, analysis, evaluation, and consistent management oversight, with quality assurance processes in place
5. review the structure of victim work within the service and ensure it is sufficiently resourced to drive improvements and deliver high-quality work to victims
6. strengthen and develop the victim offer, include the voice of victims to inform service delivery, and ensure that processes are fully embedded and understood
7. work with Leicestershire Police to improve work in relation to victim consent, to understand the profile and diversity needs of victims, ensure victim consent is informed, and understand why some victims do not consent
8. work with the Probation Service to make sure it meets its statutory duties, improve information-sharing about key individuals in children’s lives and develop clear joint processes for statutory victim provision.

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Background (Back to top)

We conducted fieldwork in Leicester City CYPJS over a period of a week, beginning on 31 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 30 September 2024 and 29 November 2024. We also conducted 24 interviews with case managers.

We inspected the organisational arrangements for work delivered with victims and looked at cases where the YJS had undertaken contact with victims between 30 September 2024 and 29 November 2024. We also conducted interviews with staff and managers responsible for the delivery of this work.

Leicester City is within the county of Leicestershire in the East Midlands of England, which has its own youth justice service. Leicestershire is a separate youth justice service that also covers Rutland. However, there is joint work between the two services across the Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland region.

Leicester is one of the youngest cities in the country and is also one of the most ethnically and culturally diverse; 43 per cent of Leicester’s population is Asian, with the majority being of Indian heritage. Leicester also has a large Eastern European (Polish, Romanian), Black African (Somali, Nigerian), and Caribbean population. White children are disproportionately represented within the CYPJS relative to the general population in Leicester.

The CYPJS sits in Prevention in the Social Care, Early Help and Prevention Division. The head of service for Prevention has strategic responsibility for the service, alongside other service areas, including the Youth Service, Rights and Participation, Edge of Care, Family Group Conferencing, domestic abuse and sexual violence and Channel. The CYPJS has a dedicated service manager, who oversees operational delivery and helps shape the strategic direction of the CYPJS and Youth Service, although they were on sickness absence at the time of the inspection. The strategic director for social care and education is the chair of the CYPJS management board.

During our inspection we heard about the work the service was undertaking with its early intervention offer and its efforts to identify children at the earliest opportunity. As part of the context visit, we saw examples of work being undertaken within local communities that showed how the partnership was focusing on creating safer places and spaces for children and their families.

On the day the inspection was announced, the CYPJS was working with 65 children subject to a community sentence, nine children in custody, two children on remand, two children on licence and 46 children who were subject to a youth conditional caution, youth caution, community resolution or other out-of-court disposal. The profile of children included 51.3 per cent from a Black, Asian and minority ethnic group, 54 per cent with a learning disability or difficulty, 13.2 per cent who were care-experienced, 52.2 per cent who had substance misuse issues and 11.3 per cent who had a child in need plan. At the time of our inspection, the service had recently transitioned from Capita to the NEC case management system, and we were aware of issues with recording as a result of the migration. Staff had also had to navigate the change in systems.

The first-time entrant rate per 100,000 of the 10- to 17-year-olds population of the Leicester City CYPJS was 136, which was the same as for the East Midlands region during the period January 2023 to December 2023. There is little variance in the service’s reoffending rates and between April 2022 and March 2023 they were 39.4 per cent compared to 32.5 per cent for England and Wales.

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Domain two: Work with children (Back to top)

We took a detailed look at 24 cases where the YJS has worked with children, subject to bail, remand, community sentences, resettlement or out-of-court disposals.

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

Our rating^[2] for assessing is based on the following key questions:

Does assessing sufficiently analyse how to:	% ‘Yes’
achieve positive change for the child?	79%
keep the child and the community safe?	38%

In the majority of cases inspected, assessing activity to achieve positive change was detailed, comprehensive and analytical. The CYPJS had established pathways with other services to ensure that information was accessible and available to inform assessing activity. Practitioners used information from children’s social care, the police, health care navigators, education and the substance misuse service to help provide a holistic picture of the child’s strengths and needs. The service did not have a seconded probation officer and inspectors found that there were missed opportunities to gather information for a fuller understanding of the key individuals involved in a child’s life.

We found that multi-agency meetings helped practitioners collate information about the child and their family to inform their assessing activity. These included the children’s justice review panel, the youth joint action group and the case management and diversity panel, which all shared information to monitor children’s involvement with the police and progress with the CYPJS. They ensured that all agencies were up to date with the child’s circumstances. In some cases, however, we found that, although this information was gathered from other agencies, it was not adequately analysed to inform assessing activity.

When considering children’s education, training and employment needs, we found that information from the special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) panel positively impacted assessing activity. Practitioners could access up to date information from the multi-agency partners involved to help analyse the child’s learning and educational needs. Practitioners were proactive and creative in involving children and identifying strengths and motivations that informed their relationship with the child. We found that practitioners were confident in assessing children’s protected characteristics and analysing their diversity needs. They showed a good understanding of the impact of the child’s culture and their heritage. However, in some cases practitioners had not always considered the impact of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) on a child’s interaction and engagement.

Inspectors found examples of the high priority that practitioners gave to developing and maintaining an effective working relationship with parents and carers. This enabled them to get a better understanding of the child’s familial context and wider networks. Practitioners used this information to inform their engagement with the child, which enhanced overall assessing activity. In the majority of cases, practitioners were attuned and responsive to issues that affected the child’s ability to achieve positive change.

When considering the safety of the child and the community, the quality of assessing activity was variable. Recognising children’s experience of trauma was a strength in the cases inspected. We saw examples of how the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) team provided case consultations with practitioners to discuss children as part of the assessing process and created reports on how best to work with the child. We found that practitioners showed genuine care in their approach to understanding children’s lived experiences. As a result, they had a better understanding of the child and were able to relate this to the child’s current behaviours.

Inspectors found assessing activity was improved by practitioners’ understanding of children’s health needs. They liaised with the health care navigators, who identified any concerns about the child’s health and supported the practitioner in referring the child to appropriate services. However, the CYPJS did not have a speech, language and communication therapist linked to the service and there was no specific provision identified. Despite practitioners receiving training in identifying these issues, we found gaps in some assessments where children’s needs had not been fully explored.

Inspectors found that practitioners did not always use information about children’s past behaviours and convictions when considering their risk to the community. They did not identify potential patterns in behaviour or use them to analyse the circumstances, nature or context of where harmful behaviour may occur again. We found that practitioners did not clearly evidence why they had excluded some children’s relevant risky previous behaviours in their current risk analysis. In most cases, assessing activity did not sufficiently identify the concerns or analyse the support and interventions needed to keep everyone safe. Assessment of the needs and safety of victims were considered in too few cases. Inspectors found examples of missed opportunities to consider victims’ views, consider restorative justice approaches and keep actual and potential victims safe.

In too many cases, assessing had not responded to changes in the child’s life and had not analysed the impact of that change on the safety of the child and others. For children in the secure estate, we found examples of incidents happening and the child’s assessment not being reviewed. In some more serious cases, we found limited assessing activity, a lack of analysis of the child’s needs and little information shared with the custodial estate to ensure that both the child and the staff and children in the establishment were kept safe. We found management oversight was insufficient, ineffective or absent in half of the cases inspected.

The CYPJS had positive relationships with its partners and there were clear procedures in place to achieve safety for children and the wider community. However, this did not always translate into sufficient practice. Practitioners were supported in their assessing activity by the regular and timely information and intelligence from the police. Work had been completed with practitioners around serious youth violence, criminal exploitation and contextual safeguarding. Inspectors found evidence of this understanding in some of the work with children, but a more proactive and challenging approach to management oversight is needed to gain consistency across all cases.

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

Our rating^[3] for planning is based on the following key questions:

Does planning focus sufficiently on how to:	% ‘Yes’
achieve positive change for the child?	88%
keep the child and community safe?	50%

The CYPJS prioritised planning and working alongside children to achieve positive change. Inspectors found many examples of practitioners collaborating with children and ensuring that their opinions and voices formed part of the planning activities. Children had contributed to discussions around the proposed interventions and the places and spaces where they felt safe. There was evidence in nearly all cases that plans had been co-produced with children, resulting in a strong understanding of children’s strengths, aspirations, and goals. Feedback from the children we spoke to also confirmed that they had felt listened to and included in the process and were given choices as part of the planning process.

We found examples of practitioners considering children’s learning styles, maturity and diversity needs. Planning was aligned with work that was happening with other agencies, including children’s social care and children’s residential homes. The CYPJS education, training and employment worker advocated for children in schools, ensuring that they were accessing appropriate educational provision. The worker included schools in safety plans to encourage children’s attendance and engagement. For children in custodial establishments, we found good communication with keyworkers, which ensured that planning considered children’s learning and development styles and met their educational needs. Inspectors noted the close work with Connexions personal advisers to put plans in place to ensure that post school age children were accessing provision that met their educational, training and employment needs.

Practitioners proactively engaged parents and carers in the planning process and families continued to be involved when plans were reviewed and changed. We found planning built on children’s interests and skills and practitioners used community activities and local projects to help keep children motivated and engaged. In nearly all cases practitioners knew what wider support services were available for children to access in their local community when their involvement with the CYPJS ended. Inspectors noted positive examples of practitioners planning with the child for the early revocation of orders based on the good progress the child had made.

Planning to keep the child safe was stronger than planning to keep communities safe. The quality of planning was impacted by gaps in assessing activity. When risks had not been identified or analysed as part of assessing activity, practitioners did not take account of them in planning. We found that in most cases the practitioner had not paid enough attention to considering what was needed to reduce concerns in relation to children’s vulnerability, victimisation and exploitation. New information provided by the police outlining children’s behaviour and activities in the community was not being evaluated and planning activity was not responsive to potential increased risks to the child’s safety.

Inspectors found that planning included collaborative work with other agencies to address the key factors needed to keep the child safe. These agencies included Turning Point (substance misuse), Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS), education provision and referrals to children’s services, if required. Examples showed that, for children who had experienced a history of trauma, planning included multi-agency case formulation meetings with ACEs team, which agreed an approach across agencies about the best way to engage the child. In some cases, there was evidence of the CAMHS worker referring children to emotional wellbeing and mental health services for interventions to be delivered. We found evidence of planning activity with the Turning Point worker, who practitioners referred to when more intensive specialist substance misuse work was required.

Inspectors noted that there was a mostly positive relationship with children’s social care and saw examples of joint planning through attendance at multi-agency statutory meetings. Where it was necessary, concerns about specific children were appropriately escalated to the relevant children’s social care managers. We found a clear process in place for assessing, planning and delivering interventions for children who displayed harmful sexual behaviour. CYPJS practitioners were trained in AIM3 (assessment, intervention and moving on) and in one case the planning included co-working with a colleague from children’s social care.

In too many cases the specific needs of victims were not considered, which placed known and potential victims at risk. In one case the practitioner had not made statutory contact with the probation victim contact service, which meant the victim’s views and wishes had not been considered as part of planning licence conditions. We found that recognising wider risks to other people and planning for children’s potential future harmful behaviour was not always thought through. For example, some practitioners had not considered the risk to other children and staff in a school setting, or had not taken account of other family members who may have been at risk of domestic abuse.

Practitioners used the CYPJS multi-agency case management and diversity panel in the planning process. We found some evidence in the cases of the positive impact that this panel was having in terms of enabling information to be shared and keeping agencies up to date with the child’s circumstances. Again, however, this needed to be demonstrated more consistently across planning for safety to others.

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

Our rating^[4] 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?	92%
keep the child and the community safe?	58%

The delivery of services to achieve positive change was a strength. Practitioners were skilled at developing positive working relationships with children, parents, and carers. Delivery was child-centred and trauma-informed, with interventions focusing on children’s strengths and protective factors. We saw the high priority that practitioners gave to developing and maintaining effective working relationships with children, encouraging them to participate and engage. Practitioners promptly recognised barriers to engagement and this proactive approach enabled early resolution and repositioning of work that needed to be completed to achieve positive change.

Practitioners had a good understanding of the services available to support children and worked alongside other agencies to ensure that the services delivered met the child’s needs. These included substance misuse, police, the ACEs team, CAMHS, education and schools. The ACEs/CAMHS priority pathway resulted in access to timely support and the offer of interventions to help children with mental health, emotional well-being, and substance misuse. Although it does not negate the need for a priority pathway for CYPJS children, when speech, language and communication issues were identified there was a clear process through the SEND panel to access timely provision for children. The importance of education, training and employment opportunities was recognised, and there was evidence of practitioners, the CYPJS education, training and employment worker and the Connexions personal advisers advocating for children to ensure that the provision met their needs.

Parents and carers were appropriately included in the delivery of services to children and were involved in reviewing their children’s progress. Children were offered the opportunity to attend activities and interventions that were adapted to meet their needs, innovative and tailored to help motivate and engage them. Practitioners used community work and intervention sessions to help children build relationships and integrate into the community. The wide range of projects enabled children to be matched to activities based on their interests. There were positive examples of children taking part in the victim empathy workshop delivered by the victim contact officer. The last session involved children completing a specific initiative or community project, an example of which saw them putting together dog treat bags and giving them to the local dog rescue centre.

Inspectors found that case managers understood the trauma that some children had experienced and worked on building the relationship at the child’s pace. Children were supported to access individual or small group work activities that focused on building on their strengths and aspirations. We saw examples of how youth advocates, who are employed by the service, built relationships with children, joined them in their community work and offered mentoring to those who needed it. Inspectors saw various interventions that practitioners could offer children. These included the Phoenix Programme, which provides intensive support to children known to be at risk of, or involved in, serious violence; ‘Brake!’, a groupwork programme on motoring offences; and ‘Which Way’, where issues linked to knife crime, child criminal exploitation, and positive relationships were explored. Children were also accessing the Reach programme, which is an intensive mentoring programme to support children in school who are at risk of exclusion.

Work to promote positive change was a strong area of practice. However, while inspectors found some strengths in the delivery of services to keep children and communities safe, this was inconsistent. It was not always clear what had been done to keep children safe while they were in custody, or that agencies took a coordinated approach to ensure that both the child and the community were safe on the child’s release. In a number of cases, we found that work to keep communities safe was not always responsive to the emergence of new concerns, behaviours or offences.

Inspectors noted that the interventions identified in children’s plans were not consistently being delivered or were too generic and not specific to the child. This included work around domestic abuse, victim awareness, and healthy relationships. Although most cases showed evidence of practitioners liaising with other agencies – especially schools, Turning Point and the ACEs team, we found instances where the practitioner did not have timely contact and discussions with children’s social care when there were emerging concerns about a child’s safety.

In a number of cases where it was relevant, not enough services were delivered to ensure actual and potential victims were protected. Practitioners did not always prioritise the safety of victims. In one case, it was not clear how the child’s necessary day-to-day contact with the victim was being managed.

In the examples of positive practice in the delivery of work to keep children and communities safe, we saw timely and effective information-sharing between the CYPJS, police, children’s social care and health, which resulted in a clear response to support the delivery of services to children. In one example, interventions were delivered by children’s social care when the child’s involvement with CYPJS had ended. This was part of the exit planning and delivery for the child and family, in which they were supported to access universal provision.

Inspectors were informed of various multi-agency operations that had taken place to respond to community safety incidents, including offering reassurance to communities after grave offences had happened. We heard examples of collaborative and effective responses following incidents of serious youth violence and it was clear that there are some strengths across the partnership when working with children in their local communities.

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Work with victims (Back to top)

We took a detailed look at 12 victim cases where the YJS has offered a service to victims who have consented for their information to be shared.

Work with victims	Rating
Work with victims is high-quality, individualised and responsive driving positive outcomes and safety for victims.	Requires improvement

Our rating^[5] 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 youth justice plan 2024/2025 states that work with victims is a key priority for the service.
• The management board had planned a specific session to look at victim work and identified two board members to lead on this area.
• The service had a ‘Working with Victims’ improvement plan, which identified the areas that it needed to focus on and recognised that the management board’s contribution to working with victims needed to be stronger.
• Leicestershire Police recorded victim consent details on a referral form and the CYPJS police officer checked that they had all the information required. If there were any issues, they went back to the officer in charge.
• The CYPJS police officer was part of the newly recruited police officer training and delivered regular briefings to ensure that police officers understood the restorative offer from the CYPJS. We were assured that everything was being done by Leicestershire police to obtain victims’ consent.
• There was a victim contact officer, a restorative justice and volunteer coordinator, and two team managers involved in victim and restorative work. The victim contact officer reported that she received support from other managers as well as peers and did not feel isolated delivering this specialist area of work.
• Staff involved in direct work with victims had completed training in restorative approaches and had trained the volunteers to facilitate restorative referral order panels.
• For licences, the victim contact officer spoke to the victim about restrictions and licence conditions.
• It was clear from the focus group on victim work that staff directly involved in victim work and some case managers were passionate and committed to the work they did and wanted to provide a high-quality service to victims that was responsive to their needs.
• Staff took an individualised and sensitive approach to work with victims, especially in cases of harmful sexual behaviour.
• The victim contact officer could signpost and refer victims to other services. Inspectors saw evidence that victims were offered these services when appropriate. This included specialist services to meet the diverse needs of victims.
• The YJS provided an extensive range of community work activities, which meant that victims had a wide choice when considering options for indirect reparation.
• The service had been trying to engage corporate victims to help improve the relationship with local businesses and the local community.
• Information and leaflets were produced for victims, which explained what services were available for them.
• There was evidence of some community development-based victim initiatives and partnership work taking place through neighbourhood teams, and detached workers targeting specific hotspot areas.

Areas for improvement:

• The CYPJS management board did not have oversight of the quality of victim work to assure itself that services provided by the CYPJS and partner agencies were high quality, individualised, and responsive to the needs of all victims.
• It was not clear how the CYPJS funding and resourcing for delivering victim work was formulated and agreed.
• Although the victim and restorative approaches policy had recently been revised, it did not reference the management board and what its responsibilities were in terms of victim work. The policy had not yet been shared with the board or the staff team.
• Victim work was not monitored as part of the management board’s quarterly performance report and there was no demographic analysis of the victim cohort or an understanding of whether victims had any protected characteristics or diversity needs.
• The board did not receive reports on victims’ feedback and had no strategic oversight of victims’ participation or the support provided to individuals who required some level of victim-related intervention.
• Victim work was not understood across the partnership, and it was not clear how it linked with other strategic areas, such as the community safety partnership.
• The custody and resettlement policy and the policy for youth to adult transitions to the Probation Service did not reference victims or how they would be involved and considered in the different processes.
• No formal pathway had been established with the Probation Service statutory victim contact service and processes were not clear for either organisation.
• There was no monitoring of victim consent rates and no analysis of the reasons why victims did not consent.
• The victim contact officer role was half time, capacity was limited and, with the number of victims known to the service, her workload was unmanageable.
• Restorative approaches and victim and community work were divided across two managers. As a result, this area of work could lack the overall responsibility and focus required to drive it forward.
• There was no monitoring of victim safety or any comparison between the levels of safety victims felt at the beginning and end of interventions.
• Victim work needs to be recorded on the new case management system so that performance data on victims can be produced.
• The CYPJS acknowledged that more needed to be done to engage victims in the feedback process so their views could influence service delivery.
• The responsibility for victim work needs to be considered across the whole service to ensure that victims have a high profile, and their views and wishes are considered by all staff across the organisation.

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

Leicester City CYPJS had a strong commitment to hearing from children and families, and the name of the service was developed and chosen by children in the service. The local authority had adopted the Lundy model of participation and its four principles of space, voice, audience, and influence. The approach was being embedded across children’s social care, early help and prevention, and there were champions trained in the model, supported by a participation team manager.

Participation and co-production were key priorities in the children’s services’ three-year plan. The Rights and Participation Service had recently moved under the head of service responsible for youth and youth justice. An addendum to the social care and education participation strategy specifically focused on the CYPJS response to ensuring effective co-production with children and their families in their assessments, plans and interventions. The service promoted a relational model, and we found that this was a strength in the cases inspected.

The service co-produced plans with children, was developing ‘writing to the child’ assessments, and used feedback forms, the results from which were included in the performance report to the board. The service had different methods for capturing feedback, which included comment boxes, social media platforms, surveys and focus groups. In 2024, it used podcasts to capture the voice of Black male children who wanted to share their experiences of arrest and custody. It has also collaborated with children open to the service to develop a children’s plan.

The CYPJS contacted, on our behalf, children who were working with the CYPJS at the time of the inspection, to gain their consent and to enable them and their parents or carers to feed back on their experience of the CYPJS. 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). During the inspection we also met with a parent and heard about the positive impact that early intervention services had on her child and family.

We spoke with 11 children, three of whom had their parent or carer with them. All felt respected and valued by CYPJS staff and other people working with them and felt that the CYPJS had helped them either ‘quite’ well or ‘very’ well. All stated that the places where they were seen were either ‘very’ or ‘quite’ safe for them.

The feedback provided by children and their parents or carers to inspectors was overwhelmingly positive. One child, talking about whether they were included in planning for what was going to happen with the CYPJS, said:

“They asked me what I wanted. I am creative and like art – someone took me to the riverside where we completed graffiti art, and I loved this. I feel they respected me – my worker always says hello when they run into me at school, even though I am no longer working with them.”

When asked how their identity and needs were recognised, one child said:

“I get bored and agitated easily in school – my worker helped me with this and spoke to the school – now I am allowed to take breaks when I need time outs and this has helped me regulate and stay in school.”

When asked how well the service had helped them, another child commented:

“I have had lots of help – Connexions helped me with employment – I have done a construction course and got a qualification in painting and decorating.”

When asked how well the CYPJS communicated with them, one parent stated:

“They have done really well – they’ve explained things to me and my child when we didn’t understand what was going on.”

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Equity, Diversity and inclusion (Back to top)

Leicester City CYPJS has a strategic and operational commitment to understanding and meeting the diverse needs of children, victims and staff. The previous HM Inspectorate of Probation inspection in 2019 recommended that the service should review the over-representation of care-experienced children and young White males in the criminal justice system. Although numbers are still comparatively high, the CYPJS and the partnership have made progress with this. Monitoring is taking place and performance remains stable.

The youth justice plan sets out the service’s objective to maintain scrutiny in relation to disproportionality, and there is a disproportionality action plan in place, which is reviewed by the management board. The service has worked in partnership with children’s social care, targeted youth support, and the police to embed a localised protocol to reduce the over-representation of children in care and care leavers within the criminal justice system. All care-experienced children’s cases are reviewed and audited and the board monitors trends in practice and performance. Offending by care-experienced children is reported to the Corporate Parenting Board.

The service regularly compares open CYPJS cases and the school population. In February 2025 there were significantly higher percentages of those with a mixed background and those with a White British background among the open cases. Those of an Asian heritage were less represented than would be expected based only on the ethnicity information on school-age children. The percentage of those of Black ethnicities in custody was higher than might be expected. The percentage of those of mixed heritage was high across all categories. Those within the youth justice cohort were more likely to have special educational needs; these children either had a statutory education, health and care plan or had been designated by the school for support. We found that work carried out with schools and through the SEND panel was positive and ensured that children were both monitored and supported.

Disproportionality was reported to the management board in the performance report and there was a disproportionality working group. The board reviewed performance data. This included a breakdown of ethnicities, and data on education, SEND, social care and early help. It also included results from both the children’s and staff surveys in relation to diversity and ethnicity, and the quality assurance of cases where there had been breaches of court orders. The service completed regular audits looking at disproportionality, which were presented to the management board. In May 2024 the board discussed ethnicity and scrutinised data relating to police stop and searches. Body camera footage was used to make sure the police were following the procedures. 

The service had completed training with staff on unconscious bias and recognising the needs of the global majority. We found examples of practitioners creating safe spaces to facilitate conversations with children to understand their lived experiences and the impact of discrimination on their sense of identity and behaviours. We found a good example of work completed with a girl who identified as Muslim. The practitioner highlighted the religious practices and cultural sensitivities that needed to be considered. This included allowing space for prayer and being mindful of religious holidays and fasting periods. The practitioner highlighted the importance of making the child feel valued and provided opportunities for her to express her identity. Inspectors noted that practitioners demonstrated confidence in having conversations with children about their diverse needs, leading to discussions about culture, heritage, and identity.

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 Pauline Burke, 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] We carry out two types of inspection as part of the current youth inspection programme across England and Wales: inspections of youth justice work with children and victims and inspections of youth justice services. Further information about these inspections can be found in Our inspections.

[2] 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.

[3] 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.

[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 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.