Asked by: Janet Daby (Labour - Lewisham East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many times a member of the Senior Leadership Team from Oakhill Secure Training Centre has met (a) the Youth Custody Service and (b) officials from his Department in the last 12 months.
Answered by Edward Argar - Shadow Secretary of State for Justice
The Youth Custody Service (YCS) is a specialist service which forms part of His Majesty’s Prison & Probation Service, which is an executive agency of the Ministry of Justice. Governors of young offender institutions are officials of the Ministry of Justice and members of the YCS. Headquarters staff in the YCS are in frequent daily communication with governors of young offender institutions, with the Director of HMYOI Parc, and with the senior leadership teams at Oakhill Secure Training Centre and those secure children’s homes in which young people sentenced to custody are placed. Owing to their frequency, it is not possible to calculate the number of meetings that have taken place within the last 12 months although contact between YCS HQ and sites is a daily occurrence.
The YCS will shortly be launching a regular event at which Governors of public sector young offender institutions, the Directors of HMYOI Parc and Oakhill Secure Centre, and Registered Managers from secure children’s homes come together to share best practice and experience of managing children at their sites. In addition, a new staff exchange programme will shortly be launched, to enable staff in each sector of the youth estate to gain experience of how children and young people are supervised and cared for in other sectors.
Asked by: Janet Daby (Labour - Lewisham East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to paragraph 3.35 of the Spring Budget 2024, HC 560, published on 6 March 2024, whether he has had discussions with the Chancellor of the Exchequer on extending the Household Support Fund beyond September 2024.
Answered by Jo Churchill
The government is providing an additional £500m to enable the extension of the Household Support Fund, including funding for the Devolved Administrations through the Barnett formula to be spent at their discretion. This means that Local Authorities in England will receive an additional £421m to support those in need locally through the Household Support Fund.
Asked by: Janet Daby (Labour - Lewisham East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the HM Chief Inspector of Prisons publication entitled Report on an unannounced inspection of HMYOI Wetherby by HM Chief Inspector of Prisons (20 November – 7 December 2023), published on 5 March 2024, what steps he is taking to reduce waiting times for routine dental treatment.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
NHS England has advised that, since the inspection, the waiting time for a routine dental appointment at HM Wetherby Young Offenders Institute (HMYOI) has reduced from 15 weeks to 12 weeks, with all patients triaged to ensure all urgent or pain related cases are expedited appropriately. Orthodontist services are also available.
Healthcare services continue to provide regular weekly dental clinics at HMYOI Wetherby, and non-attendance at appointments has reduced, with the involvement of an allocated healthcare officer. Work is also underway to re-procure dental healthcare services in secure children’s settings, which will further improve access and reduce waits.
Asked by: Janet Daby (Labour - Lewisham East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to the HM Chief Inspector of Prisons publication entitled Report on an unannounced inspection of HMYOI Wetherby by HM Chief Inspector of Prisons (20 November – 7 December 2023), published on 5 March 2024, what assessment he has made of the causes of levels of self-harm by female inmates.
Answered by Edward Argar - Shadow Secretary of State for Justice
In 2021, the Youth Custody Service and NHS England co-commissioned the Centre for Mental Health to undertake a review into the needs of girls in the children and young people secure estate.
The report found that trauma-related stress is then communicated differently by boys and girls. More often, girls communicated stress through internalising behaviours such as self-harm, and boys through externalising behaviours.
Any girl in the secure estate who is at risk of self-harm will be supported through the Assessment, Care in Custody and Teamwork (ACCT) process, ensuring she has a dedicated case manager, and girls with the most complex needs will receive additional monitoring and more intensive case management.
Asked by: Janet Daby (Labour - Lewisham East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to the HM Chief Inspector of Prisons publication entitled Report on an unannounced inspection of HMYOI Wetherby by HM Chief Inspector of Prisons (20 November – 7 December 2023), published on 5 March 2024, what steps he is taking to improve the teaching of English at HMYOI Wetherby.
Answered by Edward Argar - Shadow Secretary of State for Justice
Education managers created a reading strategy which commenced in November 2023 and is in use across the prison, making sure reading for purpose and reading for pleasure are adequately planned and delivered in all lessons, including those for children receiving outreach tuition.
The Head of Education, Skills & Work at HMYOI Wetherby, who is part of the Senior Management Team, will work with the education provider to effect improvements in the quality of English teaching. Attention will be given to ensuring that teachers, when planning learning, pay full regard to children’s starting points, so as to be able to maintain their interest and engagement. All functional skills staff will be required to attend collaborative planning workshops, to improve planning for learning, create clear assessment checkpoints and markers for assessing progress, and develop a sequenced curriculum for delivering English lessons. The Education provider will ensure their staff are teaching to good or outstanding grades through observations of teaching and learning, providing continual professional development and support to any staff who do not reach the required minimum standards. This will be monitored through contract management processes.
Asked by: Janet Daby (Labour - Lewisham East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the average number of hours spent out of cells by female inmates was on (a) weekdays and (b) weekend days at HMYOI Wetherby in January 2024.
Answered by Edward Argar - Shadow Secretary of State for Justice
The information requested, stated in hours and minutes, is set out in the table below. The figures below were calculated during January 2024.
Weekday | 4hr 34mins |
Weekends | 4hr 24mins |
As the number of girls at HMYOI Wetherby is very small, it would not be statistically appropriate to try to draw conclusions from the above figures about girls’ general experience of time out of room.
We recognise the importance of ensuring that time in a secure setting is purposeful, and we are committed to ensuring that children and young people have the necessary and appropriate access to education, skills, and work related provision with a consistent daily programme of activities supporting their wellbeing and progress. The Youth Custody Service continues to review daily activity and staff deployment to maximise time-out-of-room, with a focus on staff recruitment and retention to support this delivery.
Asked by: Janet Daby (Labour - Lewisham East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to the HM Chief Inspector of Prisons publication entitled Report on an unannounced inspection of HMYOI Wetherby by HM Chief Inspector of Prisons, 20 November – 7 December 2023, published on 5 March 2024, what assessment he has made of future options for the accommodation of girls on the Secure Youth Estate.
Answered by Edward Argar - Shadow Secretary of State for Justice
His Majesty’s Prison & Probation Service is providing support to the staff at HMYOI Wetherby who care for girls in the Keppel Unit. The Youth Custody Service is looking to develop a gender-specific operating model for HMYOI Wetherby, and gender-responsive guidance for the wider youth secure estate. We will continue to place girls into the Keppel Unit when it best suits their needs.
For the longer term, we are examining future placement options of girls who receive a custodial sentence, together with the operational support and training needed for the care of girls in the youth estate.
Asked by: Janet Daby (Labour - Lewisham East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to the HM Chief Inspector of Prisons publication entitled Report on an unannounced inspection of HMYOI Wetherby by HM Chief Inspector of Prisons (20 November – 7 December 2023), published on 5 March 2024, what assessment he has made of the quality of risk assessments completed by resettlement practitioners.
Answered by Edward Argar - Shadow Secretary of State for Justice
Following the previous inspection of HMYOI Wetherby, additional emphasis was placed on resettlement work. This has resulted in improved outcomes for children and young people in our care. HM Inspectorate’s latest report notes that children and 18-year-olds received good support from resettlement practitioners (RPs) and the social workers who worked with them, and Home Detention Curfew (HDC), transitions, parole and early release processes were managed well.
The Head of Resettlement at HMYOI Wetherby will lead improvement in the quality and consistency of risk-assessment work by RPs, by undertaking the following actions:
Asked by: Janet Daby (Labour - Lewisham East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to HM Chief Inspector of Prisons' publication entitled Report on an unannounced inspection of HMYOI Wetherby (20 November - 7 December 2023), published on 5 March 2024, whether he has made an assessment of the impact of reducing time spent in cells on levels of (a) violence and (b) self-harm at HMYOI Wetherby.
Answered by Edward Argar - Shadow Secretary of State for Justice
The Youth Custody Service’s COVID-19 Research & Evaluation Programme Report, published in January 2023 (Youth Custody Service YCS CoRE Programme report (publishing.service.gov.uk)) explored the experiences of those involved in the youth secure estate in England and Wales during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. One of the key findings was that staff were concerned about the effect on children’s well-being of regime restrictions and interruptions to criminal cases. They noted, however, a reduction in self-harm and violence, which they related to children’s feeling safer, as a result of smaller residential groups and a calmer regime.
Overall, our primary strategy to reduce violence within the youth estate is to deliver our framework for integrated care, known as ‘SECURE STAIRS,’ which seeks to support staff in working with children and young people to provide trauma-informed care which addresses the causes of their offending behaviour and sustainable long-term support in preparing them for release. This is delivered in partnership with NHS England, and includes improvements in areas such as conflict resolution and specialist psychological interventions.
Asked by: Janet Daby (Labour - Lewisham East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to the HM Chief Inspector of Prisons publication entitled Report on an unannounced inspection of HMYOI Wetherby by HM Chief Inspector of Prisons (20 November – 7 December 2023), published on 5 March 2024, what assessment he has made of the potential implications for his policies of the finding that some separated children receive 30 minutes a day out of their cell at HMYOI Wetherby.
Answered by Edward Argar - Shadow Secretary of State for Justice
HM Inspectorate’s report explains that the key reason for differences in length of time out of room, was whether children could mix with other children. The Youth Custody Service (YCS) will aim to reduce the length of time for which children at HMYOI Wetherby are separated, and improve the regime provided for them, by introducing new guidance which will make for a consistent approach to carrying out Rule 49 (Removal from association) reviews. A psychologist will provide timely short-term assessments of risk and need, to support efficient reintegration at the earliest opportunity.
The YCS will seek to ensure that reintegration planning commences at the point of separation, and includes input from all key areas, to ensure the child is provided with a purposeful regime including education, gymnasium, wing-based activities and psychology.
We will improve the education provision for all children, and the charity Kinetic Youth will be involved in enhancing provision for separated children.