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“Significant weaknesses” found at Bradford Youth Justice Service, rated ‘Inadequate’ following inspection

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Bradford Youth Justice Service (YJS) has received an overall rating of ‘Inadequate’ following a reactive inspection of work with children and victims by His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Probation.

Chief Inspector of Probation, Martin Jones, said: “We found a service with a genuine desire to improve outcomes for children, with leaders and staff working to embed child-first principles. However, risks to children and others were not analysed consistently, responsive planning was weak, and management oversight was significantly variable, leaving too many children with unmet safety and wellbeing needs.”

Inspectors found significant weaknesses in the ability of the YJS to keep children and communities safe, and that governance and partnership arrangements had not provided sufficient oversight or challenge to drive improvements in frontline practice. This required urgent attention.

In addition, partnership working was ineffective, with agencies too often operating in silos and focused on individual service priorities rather than delivering a coordinated response to meet the needs of youth justice service children.

The report notes that staff at Bradford YJS were committed to supporting children and demonstrated strong values and knowledge. However, workforce pressures, vacancies, high levels of sickness absence, and gaps in partner provision had contributed to excessive workloads and inconsistency in practice.

Mr Jones added: “The challenge for Bradford YJS is to ensure, at pace, that governance, partnership activity, and management oversight are focused on improving the quality of assessing, planning, and delivery, particularly in relation to children’s safety and the safety of others. A whole-system response from all partners will be required for the YJS be able to achieve consistently positive outcomes for children while also keeping them, and communities, safe.

The Inspectorate’s report makes nine recommendations. Five are for Bradford YJS management board, including to take collective ownership of performance and implement a robust assurance framework to drive rapid improvements in work to keep children and communities safe. Four are for the Youth Justice Service, including to improve the quality and depth of assessing, planning, and delivery work to keep children and communities safe

Notes to editor 

  1. Inspections of work with children is one of two separate types of youth justice inspection undertaken by the Inspectorate.
  2. In this inspection we have inspected and rated work against our standards in domain two, and the victims’ standard. For more information, visit our website: Youth Justice Services – HM Inspectorate of Probation
  3. This was a reactive inspection. This occurs when we are either concerned by our findings from an IYJWCV, or we have seen significant effective practice through the IYJWCV and wish to find out more about how this has been achieved. In either of these situations, we may return to the YJS after a short period to inspect the work against the domain one standards. This enables us to understand and report on the enablers of and barriers to the poor or effective practice that we saw in our inspection of frontline work with children and victims. We will not inspect a fresh sample of work; instead, the purpose is to understand how governance and leadership, staffing, and partnerships and services have contributed to what we have seen in work with children and victims.
  4. This service works with children aged 10 to 17. The YJS supervise children with complex needs and some in the care of the local authority.
  5. The Inspectorate uses a four-point scale: ‘Outstanding’; ‘Good’; ‘Requires improvement’ and ‘Inadequate’; rating specific aspects of each service and giving an overall rating.
  6. The report is available on the HM Inspectorate of Probation website on xx Month 2026.
  7. HM Inspectorate of Probation is the independent inspector of youth justice and probation services across England and Wales.
  8. Fieldwork for this inspection took place in June 2026.
  9. For media enquiries; please contact Head of Communications: media@hmiprobation.gov.uk