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Youth Offending Team Inspection Programme

The joint inspection programme started in September 2003, following two pilot inspections. The programme has been led by HMI Probation, with participation from eight other criminal justice and other inspectorates:

  • Estyn
  • Healthcare Commission
  • Healthcare Inspectorate Wales
  • HM Inspectorate of Constabulary
  • HM Inspectorate of Prisons
  • HM Inspectorate of Probation
  • Office for Standards in Education
  • Care and Social Services Inspectorate for Wales

All 157 YOTs in England and Wales have been inspected over a five to six year cycle. As this is a long inspection programme, we decided to break it down into four phases in order to retain its relevance and ensure that it continued to consider local and national concerns.

The four phases are:

  • Phase One: September 2003 - September 2004
    The inspections concentrated on key issues, with emphasis placed on establishing benchmarks and the dissemination of good practice. YOTs are being asked to volunteer for this stage of the process.
  • Phase Two: September 2004 - July 2005
    During this time the inspections were tailored to each YOT, based on an examination of the data available and the findings from other inspection programmes.
  • Phase Three: July 2005 - February 2006
    The inspections focused on achievement against targets met, particularly on increasing overall performance and ensuring consistency of practice.
  • Phase Four: March 2007 onwards
    We continued to fine-tune our methodology for Phase Four and our focus continued to be on the individual delivery of services to those children and young people who are either at risk of offending or have already offended.

The inspections have been carried out in line with the Government’s commitment to proportionate and coordinated inspection in local government, informed by the Comprehensive Performance Assessment results and the Wales Programme for Improvement.

The inspection programme was based on comprehensive criteria focusing on:

  • Work in Courts
  • Work with children and young people in the community
  • Work with children and young people subject to Custodial Sentences
  • Victims and restorative justice
  • Management

The criteria are available below:

An 'End of Programme' report on the YOT Inspection programme 2003-08 (PDF 1.26mb) was published in March 2009.

A report on the Joint Inspection Findings of Youth Offending Teams in Wales 2003-2008 (PDF 0.57mb) was published in September 2009.

More information

Practice Examples in the Youth Offending Team Inspection Programme - Phase IV

The document below is an amalgamation of good practice examples from all phase four Youth Offending Team reports published to date:

Practice examples (PDF 0.2mb)

Practice Examples in the Youth Offending Team Inspection Programme - Phase III

The following is a summary of the practice examples relating to diversity mentioned in Phase III reports in 2005 to 2006. For ease of reference, the examples are presented under each of the section headings below:

  • Youth Offending Team Inspection Reports

    The programme was led by HMI Probation, with participation from eight other criminal justice and other inspectorates. The programme inspected all 157 YOTs over a 5 year period from mid-2003

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