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

Foreword (Back to top)

This inspection is part of our programme of inspections across youth justice services in England and Wales.[1] In this inspection we have inspected and rated work with children and victims in Wirral YJS across two broad areas: the quality of work done with children working with the YJS and the quality of work done with victims.

Overall, Wirral YJS was rated as ‘Good’.

We found the services needed to help children make positive changes and to keep them safe had been prioritised. The partnership had invested in prevention work and completed a redesign of services to promote collaborative working. Services had been set up to respond to the risks to children from exploitation, serious organised crime, and the drug trade. This work was based on evidence and knowledge of the local patterns and trends, alongside an understanding of the external influences driving drug-related crime, the exploitation of children, and the associated use of violence.

Assessing to achieve positive change was insightful and informed by a range of sources and included the views of children, parents, and carers. More focus is now required to ensure that assessing consistently analyses how to achieve safety for the child and the community. Planning activity was undertaken well and was consistently strong. This had resulted in partnership agencies having a clear understanding of what actions were needed to prevent further offending and to increase children’s safety, and we then saw this evidenced in the delivery of services.

Children were supported by YJS and partnership workers, committed to achieving positive change for children and able to form effective and trusting relationships with them. We found participation, engagement, and involvement was a strength of the service, and children, their parents and carers told us their voices had been heard and their views mattered. We noted numerous examples of how the views of children, parents, and carers have shaped service delivery. We found case managers that were responsive to children and adapted the way they worked to meet children’s individual needs.

Children benefited from a range of services available, which helped build on their existing strengths. Partner agencies supported children well, providing ready access to services to support mental health, substance misuse, learning needs, and support for parents.

There is much to commend Wirral YJS and the partnership for. However, arrangements for victims need to be strengthened. The service needs a better understanding of the reasons that victims choose not to engage with services. In addition, further work is needed to include actions to promote the safety of victims within casework, and to better understand their diverse needs and any vulnerabilities. That said, this is a well-led and well-managed service, and we are confident that they can build on their already strong base.

Martin Jones CBE

HM Chief Inspector of Probation

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Ratings (Back to top)

Fieldwork started April 2025

Score 7/12

Overall rating

Good

Work with children

2.1 Assessing	Requires improvement
2.2 Planning	Outstanding
2.3 Implementation and delivery	Good

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Work with victims (Back to top)

V1 Work with victims

Requires improvement

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Recommendations (Back to top)

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

Wirral YJS should:

1. improve the quality of assessing in relation to safety of the child and the community
2. improve the identification of, and response to, victims’ individual needs within victim casework, including better case recording
3. ensure that management oversight of victim work provides greater consistency and quality
4. develop better links with the probation victim liaison officer to ensure clarity of pathway, process, and respective roles
5. improve the analysis of data to ensure a more comprehensive understanding of the victim profile and ensure this is coordinated across the partnership.

Merseyside Police should:

6. improve the information provided about the diversity and vulnerabilities of victims that consent to further contact from the YJS.

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Background (Back to top)

We conducted fieldwork in Wirral YJS over a period of a week, beginning 28 April 2025. We inspected 31 cases where the YJS had commenced work with children subject to bail or remand, court disposals, or out-of-court disposals between 28 October 2024 and 27 December 2024. We also conducted 25 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 28 October 2024 and 27 December 2024. We also conducted interviews with staff and managers responsible for the delivery of this work.

Wirral is a peninsular in the north-west of England, situated close to Liverpool, Chester, and North Wales. Wirral is a metropolitan borough. It is one of the five boroughs of the Liverpool City Region, a combined authority area with a population of more than 1.5 million.

The YJS is based Wirral children’s services, in the ‘harm outside of the home’ service area. These arrangements are designed to address safety concerns that stem from the exploitation of children and issues of serious youth violence. The partnership has been focused on reducing the incidents of child exploitation and county lines activity. Merseyside Police is the responsible police force area and operates across five local policing teams: Wirral, Sefton, Knowsley, St Helens, and Liverpool. 

The YJS has an older than average age profile, with 94 per cent of children being aged 15–17, compared to the national average of 75 per cent. Boys comprise most of the children open to the service (at 91 per cent), with few girls being cautioned or sentenced. The majority of out-of-court disposals are outcome 22[2] and, since 2021, there has been very little use of youth conditional cautions. The rates of first-time entrants into the formal justice system have been consistently lower than regional and national averages. 

The Youth Justice Board has placed Wirral in quadrant one, the highest performing category. Children’s services were last inspected in September 2023 and were rated as ‘Requires improvement’. The last SEND inspection, in January 2025, resulted in areas for priority action. The latest monitoring visit evidenced that progress had been made, but there were still delays in accessing assessments and services for children who have additional needs.

The YJS partnership has invested in prevention work. This approach is based on evidence and knowledge of the local patterns, trends, and understanding of the external influences driving drug related crime, exploitation of children, and the associated use of violence. We undertook a context visit which involved a tour of the Wirral area. We travelled from the YJS base at Solar Campus (Wallasey) through to Birkenhead and visited a multi-agency site at Pilgrim Street, Birkenhead. 

The YJS senior leaders were keen to emphasise and demonstrate the diversity of the Wirral area. There is a marked contrast between pockets of wealth and rural seaside affluence and the social deprivation and poverty seen on some of the estates to the east of the authority. The YJS highlighted that approximately 75 per cent of the caseload is based in the east, with the M53 motorway acting as the dividing line. This influences service provision and delivery across all services throughout the wider partnership.

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Domain two: Work with children (Back to top)

We took a detailed look at 31 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.	Requires improvement

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

Does assessing sufficiently analyse how to:	% ‘Yes’
achieve positive change for the child?	84%
keep the child and the community safe?	58%

The YJS has developed and maintained a strong focus on assessing what actions and interventions were helpful to children to reduce their risk of offending. The views of children, parents, and carers had been obtained and used to understand the life of the child and the factors that were drawing them into offending behaviours.

Information from a wide range of sources had been collated, including access to information held by children’s social care. This direct access enabled case managers to identify previous or current involvement, the reasons for the contact, and how the child and family had responded. Consequently, YJS practitioners could assess who was in the best position to work with children and agree sequencing of interventions. This was of specific importance, given that the majority of children in contact with the YJS were on an out-of-court disposal, with limited time for work to be undertaken. Access to social care information meant that the out-of-court disposal panel could use key information to inform decision-making, which was important as there were no representatives from children’s social care on the panel.

The information shared by the police at daily multi-agency briefings was used effectively. This meant that case managers swiftly became aware of children’s contact with the police. This subsequently provided opportunities to reassess and review planning and service delivery.

Inspectors found that information about children’s education and health needs was gathered and used to good effect. Assessing activity routinely drew out the implications for children who had attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), learning difficulties, and emotional and mental health needs. Specialist assessments had been undertaken when needed, including psychiatric reports and Assessment, Intervention and Moving on (AIM) assessments to assess harmful sexual behaviour. Alongside this, in a number of cases, the culmination of a wide range of assessing activity resulted in well-informed pre-sentence reports and referral order assessments, providing courts and panels with a holistic picture of children’s needs.

In one example, the assessing activity undertaken showed that the child was struggling to understand court processes, due to previously undiagnosed significant speech and language needs. Inspectors noted that the case manager undertook a number of sessions adapted to the child’s level of understanding to explain what would happen at court, the language that would be used, and implications of appearing at court. Not only did this support the child at a critical time, but the child also went on to receive a full speech and language assessment.

However, the assessing of the vulnerability of children and risks to the community did not consistently identify or analyse all relevant factors. Within our inspection of casework, we found that more in-depth analysis of how to achieve safety for the child and the community was needed. Inspectors judged that work needed to be more consistent across all types of cases, including out-of-court disposals, bail and remand, resettlement, and court disposals.

We found case managers did not always use information about children’s past behaviours and convictions when considering how to achieve safety for the community. We found some underestimation of patterns in behaviours, which then led to some factors not having enough prominence and judged that some of the cases assessed as low risk in terms of safety to others, tended to be underestimated. While some decisions were defensible, opportunities were missed to analyse the exact nature or context of where harmful behaviour may occur, or where a child may have faced risks.

As a result, we found that assessing did not always clearly evidence why some factors had been excluded, and there was insufficient reasoning about some children’s relevant previous behaviours in their current risk analysis. We found examples where children had been known to be exploited, but arrangements and decisions from multi-agency panels were not included in YJS assessments. In some examples, the child’s behaviour in the family home, either through their violence to parents or through the associated risk to the family of the child holding weapons, was not considered fully enough.

Within our inspection, we were pleased to see a strong example, in which the Multi-agency Public Protection Arrangements (MAPPA) panel had added clarity and coordination to complex case management arrangements. The professionals involved in the work to keep the community safe worked effectively to respond to new and concerning information. This provided the network with a shared and cohesive understanding of the child’s risks and how these should be managed.

It was reassuring to note that following the introduction of the Youth Justice Board’s Prevention and Diversion Tool (PADT) the YJS had undertaken quality assurance on the first 20 assessments using this new document. The quality assurance highlighted areas for improvement, including examples of limited analysis, similar to our findings. As a result of this internal audit activity, an action plan had been produced with a focus upon addressing these areas.

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

Our rating^[4] 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?	81%

Planning to achieve positive change and to keep the child and community safe was completed to a consistently high standard. We noted that planning supported the child’s strengths, including involvement in sports, arts, and music. These activities were used to engage children and support the development of their skills and sense of positive achievement.

Activities and actions were planned to help children become better integrated into their own communities, including work to help children access suitable education, training, and employment opportunities. To further strengthen children’s involvement in appropriate community-based services, the partnership had developed community hubs, where children could be seen, and where they could receive ongoing support and help. We visited a newly developed hub at Pilgrim Street in Birkenhead. This had been purposely designed to draw together services in one place, where children felt safe, and where planned interventions and services could be delivered. Being in the heart of the community, planning could be undertaken quickly to respond to issues that affected children and families.

Where children’s needs had been identified, planned referrals to other agencies had been made promptly for children to access specialist assessments, support, and assistance. As some children were with the YJS for short periods of time and on a voluntary basis, the need for strong exit planning was required and we found this was consistently evident in practice. Planning considered the child’s motivation and capacity for change. It was realistic and identified the role of parents, carers and partner agencies.

Discussions with case managers and YJS staff showed that planning to keep children safe used both formal and informal methods. Where children were experiencing chaotic situations, or being directed by adults exploiting them, we found that planning was in place to try and provide stability to the child’s situation. For example, to better identify and respond to harm to children that came from outside the home, the YJS partnership had redesigned services for adolescents. This approach aligned a number of services, which supported closer joint working and resulted in strong and cohesive planning.

There was excellent use of wider planning systems to support children and keep communities safe, evident at both operational and strategic levels. This included the use of disruption activities and legal mechanisms to identify where children were facing exploitation, as well as planning which supported referrals to the national referral mechanism (NRM) and to Prevent panels. We found regular risk management meetings which supported the aligning of plans (such as YJS and child in need plans) and frequent liaison between professionals outside of meetings. We saw evidence that collaborative activity resulted in the creation of succinct safety planning, which met the needs of the child and their parents or carers. This enabled all involved to have clarity about what actions needed taking, by whom and when, for example if a child went missing. Joint working also consistently included health and substance misuse service (Response), and children’s residential support workers.

In the interviews with case managers, it was clear that sensitivity was used to discuss planning with children, so that they were clear about why specific actions and interventions were being proposed. Children were asked about where they wanted to be seen and the format of sessions was planned to meet children’s individual needs and learning. Children’s diverse needs had been incorporated into planning, even when they had not been identified in assessing. We found that case managers used the time at the start of children’s involvement with the YJS to develop open and honest relationships with children, who then felt able to talk about any difficulties they had. This informed a tailored approach to planning and supported the identification of the best way to work with children. Planning to involve parents or carers was considered carefully, which achieved a balance of providing confidential and private space for children, alongside involving parents and carers to support change and to reinforce parental roles. Inspectors found that planning had been adapted when there had been a significant change in the child’s life or circumstances. Although this didn’t always lead to a change in written plans, it did lead to changes in the activity and the approach to working with children.

On balance, safety planning to protect actual and potential victims was sufficient. However, in just over a quarter of cases, it did not address the specific concerns and risks identified to victims and this is an area that requires further focus and development.

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

Our rating^[5] 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?	77%
keep the child and the community safe?	74%

Effective coordination with other services had largely resulted in services being provided in a well-timed and sequenced way. The YJS partnership offered a wide range of universal, targeted, and specialist services. Following a needs profile undertaken by YJS leaders, resources had been allocated to provide a specific adolescent to parental violence intervention.

Inspectors noted there was strong support from mentors, who worked with children to provide positive role models, and in some instances, offered similar lived experiences. Children spoke positively about the impact and value these mentors gave them.

All children who had contact with the YJS had experienced some level of adverse childhood trauma. The impact of this was recognised across the partnership. YJS staff identified and responded to trauma well and demonstrated understanding and care for their children. Trusting relationships were the basis of service delivery and we saw that children were given an opportunity to develop effective relationships with key staff. Where it was not in the child’s best interest to have another professional involved in their life, clear decisions had been made as to who was in the best position to deliver the necessary services. Communication and ongoing contact between agencies and partnership services meant that work was delivered consistently well to achieve positive change and the safety for the child and the community.

The YJS had created a good balance of working flexibly to meet individual needs and establish clear boundaries. Children benefited from staff who were able to advocate for them, which included arrangements for children who were in custody and who were being cared for by the local authority. Contact with these children was regular and purposeful, and formed part of a cohesive approach. We saw examples of clear efforts to engage children throughout their custodial periods and following their release. Inter-agency work was in place, and we found the education worker was actively involved with the educational provider in custody to make sure children received an education. When they were released, a package of positive activities was provided to occupy children’s time and support was provided to parents or carers in establishing routine and boundaries.

The board had ensured that relevant services were provided by partners and, where there were gaps in provision, these had been identified and actions taken to improve services. However, the partnership had, in some instances, failed to assess children’s health and educational needs, and access to education, health, and care plans (EHCP) had faced significant delays. Nevertheless, recent activity had seen additional staff employed in special education needs teams and the rates of EHCP completion had improved over the past four months.

Details about the range of services were contained in a service directory and in an accessible website. This site provided children, parents, carers, and professionals with a wealth of information and resources, including details of community-based support and videos about criminal justice processes. Alongside this, managers monitored and reviewed access to services to make sure that children were accessing the right services.

Inspectors found two main areas that needed more focus. In a number of examples, case managers did not know what work had been undertaken by other agencies, or the outcomes of referrals. This included not following up on what the exploitation service was delivering or a lack of update on the outcome for a referral to the Prevent panel. This resulted in children ending their involvement with the YJS, but the service not always being fully sighted on any additional actions that might have been needed to ensure that ongoing services would be provided by partner agencies. We also found that more consistent attention needed to be given to the protection of actual and potential victims when services were delivered. This was for all victims, not just those who had opted to take up victim services.

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Work with victims (Back to top)

We took a detailed look at 15 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^[6] 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

• An information pack is sent to victims, which outlines what the YJS can offer, including services to support the victim’s recovery, opportunities for reparation and restorative justice.
• From the victim casework we saw it was clear that staff were invested in developing trusting relationships with victims and families. When done well, this had resulted in effective service delivery. Initial contact with victims demonstrated that attempts had been made to approach victims and their families with care and sensitivity.
• Training in restorative justice approaches had been delivered to YJS and partnership staff. This was part of an approach to embed restorative principles across the partnership and provide a consistent way of dealing with conflict.
• The board had recently appointed a victims’ champion to raise the profile of this work. Data and case studies were provided to the board, but greater analysis of victims’ experiences was needed to improve some key aspects of practice.
• Following a recent review by Merseyside Police and the Merseyside YJS group, the process of gaining consent had been reviewed, and new processes introduced, with victim consent being checked during a three-stage process (at the point of incident, prior to their details being provided to the YJS and on receipt of their details by the YJS).
• The victim policy had been applied across the Merseyside police force area. It had been reviewed and consideration given to how the policy was applied in Wirral YJS.
• The senior leadership team had reviewed and evaluated the implementation of the victim policy. They were well-sighted on the improvements needed, and their findings were similar to those identified during the inspection.
• The views of victims were sought and a QR code was available to enable immediate feedback to be captured.

Areas for improvement:

• The victim policy and process were not yet translating into consistently high-quality practice. The policy contained all relevant information and set out the support and services that victims should expect to receive. While contact is optional for victims, there had been no analysis of take-up rates or the reasons why some victims did not take up an offer of service and support.
• Some aspects of victim work were reviewed as part of the management board’s reporting and case studies had been heard by the board. However, there was no demographic analysis of the victim cohort, or an understanding of whether victims have any protected characteristics or diversity needs. The limited information provided to the YJS created gaps in understanding and it has been left to the victim worker to identify diversity needs.
• Victim work and victim safety were not fully understood across the partnership, and it was not clear how these linked with other strategic approaches, including the police victim care scheme.
• There was no formal pathway established with the Probation Service statutory victim contact service and processes were not clear for either organisation. Links with probation victim liaison officers were underdeveloped, and their work and contact with victims were not always known about. We saw examples where contact between the YJS and probation had been made, but there was a lack of clarity about respective roles. Inspectors were not assured whether probation had been made aware of specific services for child victims of serious offences.
• Poor recording had a detrimental effect on individual case management and hampered the YJS’s ability to review and evaluate service provision and victim experiences.
• More consistent use of data was needed to inform analysis of the victim cohort, profile and consent; the effectiveness of support and oversight of the victim worker; the use of onward services for victims; and the quality of victim safety work. Information provided by the YJS showed that in the past year there had been limited onward referrals for victims. Given the cases we assessed and the need for victim safety work, this needs to be better understood by the YJS.
• Individual diversity information for victims was not shared by the police. As a result, services were not always tailored to individual needs. This was an issue both for process and practice, which increased the potential that some opportunities to support victims were missed. Consequently, the victim worker was often trying to balance asking sensitive questions about needs, without re-traumatising the victim.
• The quality of safety planning for victims was inconsistent. In some cases, attention was given to victim safety, but in others it was not as prominent as it needed to be.
• The support victims received was variable. In some cases, due to poor recording, it was difficult to clearly identify what work had taken place.
• Workloads for the victim worker were manageable, but service delivery was inconsistent. Management oversight was not fully effective in addressing the inconsistencies.
• The booklet that outlined services to victims was underdeveloped. Despite there being a wide range of services available at universal, targeted, and specialist levels, we were not assured of how this booklet could be accessed by victims who have English as an additional language.

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

Participation, involvement, and co-production with children was a strong theme of the work of the YJS. Children had been provided with numerous opportunities to give their views and perspectives on a range of issues, both to inform strategic thinking and to enhance the individual work with them. A culture of involving children, parents, and carers had been established and was effective.

Hearing the voices of children were an important part of the board. Minutes of the board meetings demonstrated how views had been captured both directly and indirectly. Similarly in direct work children’s feedback and views helped inform the work undertaken with them. One child had prepared a recording about his experiences, and this had been helpful in keeping the child at the centre of decision making. We found that children were routinely consulted on any proposed significant changes and had been able to have input on the location and design of the community-based hubs and the branding of the YJS.

Contact and communication with children was established quickly by case managers, team managers, and senior leaders who were all visible. Throughout the inspection, the YJS team were able to represent the views and experiences of children across the partnership. This has contributed to the development of the harm outside of the home service and the local authority’s approach to exploitation.

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. We spoke to three children directly, all of whom were currently working with the YJS, and we received two responses to our text survey.

Children and parents or carers all said that they had been able to talk about the things that affected them and that any issues they had had been responded to. They felt respected and this enabled them to participate in planning activity. Children, parents and carers all gave us examples of how they had been listened to. This included a family being supported to make a complaint about a lack of education, which led to a placement being identified.

One child told us:

“Where I told [case manager] that I liked certain things, like outdoor stuff, biking, gym, they have got me into more of that sort of stuff which has been good.”

A child’s carer was able reaffirm this and said they:

“Feel that the case manager has always let [child] be expressive. If there are things he says, he gets listened to and that’s shown through the opportunities he gets offered. The case manager always listens to any suggestions”.

Case managers had taken time to make sure that children, parents and carers understood what was happening. There was a clear recognition that for most this was their first time in contact with criminal justice. One carer told us that:

“everyone took time to explain things, especially at court”.

One child talked about the impact of being listened to, expressing that they:

“feel a sense of care from my case manager and he deserves my time. I feel that they always think about my best interests”.

One child said that providing opportunities had helped them, stating the YJS:

“helped me keep busy and stay out of trouble. I used to be bored before, but I have other stuff going on now. Doing reparation and building the bird boxes, I’ve learnt new stuff”.

In the interviews, we asked children if they had felt safe where they had been seen. Children told us that they had been able to talk about places that were not safe for them, and that case managers and other professionals were able to adapt to their expressed needs. Examples were provided, which included being seen at home and appointments to fit around work commitments. The Solar Campus and the Pilgrim Street community hub were located in areas where children felt safe to attend and travel to.

We asked about things that had been positive when working with the YJS. Examples that were given included feeling like the YJS were doing:

“everything they can” and “they are good at communicating with me and keeping me up to date so I can keep track of appointments and ensure that [my child] knows about them. [He] works with so many different people now, other agencies (Response, Career connect, Nurse, CAMHS) and to start with, it was getting a bit overwhelming for [him]. But the case manager moved appointments round to make sure [he] had no more than two a week, which felt more manageable”.

Another child told us that:

“they’re just good at listening. They don’t rush me, they say they will do things at my pace.”

These themes of consultation, response, and engagement were also reported by the parent and child who responded to the text survey:

“From day one [my child] has been attending every appointment. The case manager who works with [my child] immediately build up a rapour (sic) with him. She outlined the issues that she would be working on and the reason why. She made [my child] feel comfortable. This enabled [him] to work with the case manager right from the start. [He] is feeling more confident now. He continues to engage very well with youth justice team”.

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Equity, Diversity and inclusion (Back to top)

The YJS management board had a strong understanding of the profile and demographics of the youth population in the Wirral, and of the children who were in contact with the YJS. The service had a detailed knowledge of the needs of children based upon utilising data and undertaking analysis.

Addressing disproportionality was a priority for the board and this had driven specific activity to monitor, review, and respond to the YJS population. Disproportionality was reported to the board. The youth justice management board (YJMB) quarterly performance reports and dashboard data helped identify themes linked to protected characteristics, such as gender, ethnicity, disproportionality, and disability. This information was then used to ensure the service continued to meet the requirements of the Public Sector Equality Duty.

A board member had taken lead for Equality and Diversity, and this had supported professional challenge and focused the board on the subject matter. Additionally, the quarterly strategic Merseyside Youth Performance Information Meeting monitored disparity and themes around equality. This information fed into the Local Merseyside Criminal Justice Board, chaired by the Police Crime Commissioner.

The YJS undertook an audit of a sample of young people known to the YJS. The audit was designed to review the quality of analysis in identifying diversity and equality in casework practice, alongside providing assurance that children’s individual learning needs and identity were being consistently considered. The audit showed that case managers were able to draw out the specific details and the impact of diversity needs that stemmed from children’s protected characteristics and individual personal needs. We found this in our discussion with case managers and inspection of assessing activity.

Over the past 12 months, 15 per cent of the YJS caseload had been children from a Black, Asian or minority ethnic background. This is compared with just under nine per cent of the general youth population in the Wirral. The service reviewed cases to identify any disproportionate responses in decision making by the police, out-of-court disposal panel, and courts. There were routine discussions with partners to identify trends and patterns.

The YJS was aware of a slight increase in the number of girls who were open to the service. Work was being undertaken to analyse and understand the reasons for this. Data showed that 40 per cent of victims were girls or women, and the YJS had made links with the violence against girls and women strategy to explore the options available to support female victims of crime.

The management board were well sighted on the recurring needs of children linked to ADHD, autism, and learning and communication difficulties. Partners had provided access to specialist workers to support the YJS in responding to children’s needs. In turn, the YJS had been influential in supporting partners to understand how these factors contributed to children’s vulnerability and make them potential targets for exploitation.

The service had completed training with staff on disrupting bias and racial disproportionality in the criminal justice system. This was aimed at developing cultural competency. Generally, staff were confident in discussing children’s experience of discrimination and having conversations about identity. However, some staff were more confident than others. Nevertheless, we saw positive examples of the service recognising and valuing children’s lived experiences.

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 Yvonne McGuckian 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.

[2] A Home Office outcome code used by Police resulting in No Further Action being taken after diversionary, educational or intervention activity has been undertaken.

[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 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 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.