Asked by: Peter Kyle (Labour - Hove)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps he is taking to ensure best practice Contextual Safeguarding approaches within youth justice settings.
Answered by Lucy Frazer - Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
We believe that safeguarding children in the youth justice system is key and we continue to take steps to ensure children are properly protected.
The Youth Justice Board (YJB) are currently revising their Case Management Guidance for Youth Offending Teams, which will include contextual safeguarding approaches. In addition, the YJB’s AssetPlus assessment and planning interventions framework, encourages practitioners to consider peer as well as family relationships within the assessment and planning process.
In 2018 the Government updated statutory guidance ‘Working Together to Safeguard Children’ to emphasise that children may also be at risk of harm from outside the home and that practitioners should be aware of environmental or contextual factors when undertaking assessments.
In addition, in 2019 the Ministry of Justice published ‘County Lines Exploitation: Practice guidance for YOTs and frontline practitioners’ as a best practice template when responding to, and safeguarding children involved in county lines.
In youth custodial settings, we are aiming to develop more child focussed approaches to security management, which will include elements of contextual safeguarding, alongside our partners.
Asked by: Peter Kyle (Labour - Hove)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how much financial compensation has been distributed to victims by the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority since 23 March 2020 by (a) total money awarded, and (b) number of victims in receipt of compensation.
Answered by Alex Chalk - Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice
The total compensation accepted under the schemes administered by the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority between 24 March 2020 and 6 November 2020 was £100.9m, benefitting 9,598 victims of violent crime.
Asked by: Peter Kyle (Labour - Hove)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will update his Department's 2016 report entitled Understanding the educational background of youth offenders for the most recent year for which sentencing and educational data is available.
Answered by Lucy Frazer - Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
MoJ are in the process of updating the ‘Understanding the educational background of youth offenders’ report using the most recent MoJ/DfE analytical data share. We will be updating our future release schedule when we are in a position to commit to a publication date. The data in this share relates to offenders with at least one caution or conviction from 2000 or later, who were on the Police National Computer at the end of 2017 and were matched to individuals on the National Pupil Database.
Asked by: Peter Kyle (Labour - Hove)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to p55 of the Youth Justice Board Annual Report and Accounts 2019-20, what proportion of Youth Justice Board staff are from a BAME background, by geographical region.
Answered by Lucy Frazer - Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
Due to the geographical spread of YJB staff, YJB records only allow them to split staff geographically by ‘London’ and ‘National’. In this context ‘National’ represents YJB staff who are based outside of London. The latest diversity figures have been provided by the YJB below.
72% of YJB staff are London based. Within this:
25% of London based staff are Black or from an ethnic minority group.
63% of London based staff are white
12% of London based staff have chosen not to state their ethnicity
28% of YJB staff are based Nationally. Within this:
0% of National staff are black or from an ethnic minority group.
96% of National based staff are white
4% of National based staff have chosen not to state their ethnicity.
Asked by: Peter Kyle (Labour - Hove)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps he is taking to improve BAME representation amongst the staff of the Youth Justice Board (a) overall and (b) at Grade 7-5 level.
Answered by Lucy Frazer - Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
The YJB is a non-departmental public body and as such has responsibility for its own recruitment policies and processes. They are seeking to address disproportionality by implementing good practice from other organisations.
The YJB’s actions to date include:
The YJB’s Equality and Diversity Group are reviewing the success of YJB’s measures and may make recommendations to the organisation on further good practice.
Asked by: Peter Kyle (Labour - Hove)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the Answer of 1 October 2020 to Question 96135, what plans he has to extend the emergency funding for victim support charities and helplines throughout a second wave of the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Alex Chalk - Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice
We remain committed to ensuring victims of crime receive the support they need during this challenging time and continue to work across government, with the sector and local bodies to identify emerging needs.
In response to concerns, we have extended the funding period from 31st October to allow organisations to spend the Covid-19 funding until the end March 2021.
Asked by: Peter Kyle (Labour - Hove)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps he is taking to provide support to young victims affected by backlogs in the youth courts.
Answered by Alex Chalk - Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice
The Ministry of Justice is committed to ensuring young victims of crime receive the support they need during this challenging time.
That is why throughout the pandemic, we have worked closely with criminal justice agencies and victim and witness support services, to ensure victims are kept well informed through regular communications and guidance. We are also working across government and with key stakeholders through our Covid-19 Victim and Witness Silver Command Group, which allows us to monitor and respond to emerging risks and issues, such as those impacting young victims at court.
The Government has also funded Barnardo’s See Hear Respond service, offering rapid support for children, young people and families, to help them cope with the Covid-19 crisis.
Alongside this, the Court-Based Witness Service continues to provide emotional and practical support to all witnesses, including children, to help them give their best evidence in criminal proceedings, with young, vulnerable and intimidated witnesses eligible for further outreach support prior to attending court. This will often include home visits, or remote meetings during Covid-19.
In consultation with Public Health England, and Public Health Wales, HMCTS has put in place arrangements for social distancing and mitigation of the risks associated with the pandemic. These arrangements have, since July, enabled Youth Courts to conclude more cases every week than have been received, with the safety of all those involved in these hearings being paramount. We do not currently envisage that it will be necessary to revert to any contingency listing arrangements during a second wave of covid-19.
Asked by: Peter Kyle (Labour - Hove)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps he is taking to support the welfare of victim support staff during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Alex Chalk - Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice
The Covid-19 pandemic has led to an increase in demand for victim support services, resulting in increased pressure on victim support staff. We recognise the impact the continued delivery of critical support has on providers. The Ministry of Justice is committed to ensuring victims of crime, and the organisations that work with them, receive the support they need during this challenging time. We continue to work across government and in partnership with key stakeholders, including through the Covid-19 Victim and Witness Silver Command Group, which allows us to remain alert, and respond quickly to emerging issues and risks that support services raise including those related to staff wellbeing and resilience.
We have now distributed £22 million emergency Covid-19 funding, benefiting more than 540 charities. An additional £600,000 funding was reallocated by the Ministry of Justice to assist victim support helpline services. Following the Prime Minister's Hidden Harms Summit, the government also committed to developing a Victim Funding Strategy, which aims to place the support sector on a more sustainable footing and ensure victim support staff are able to deliver their vital work.
Much of the emergency funding has been used to provide additional support for staff. For example, for sexual violence and domestic abuse services, investment has been made in increasing IT infrastructure to allow staff to provide support remotely, providing extra clinical and safeguarding support to maintain staff welfare, and funding extra PPE equipment and deep cleaning costs for organisations returning to face-to-face support.
We have also invested in providing support and networking sessions to support Independent Sexual Violence Advisers (ISVAs) through this period of change, so that they can continue to help victims feel informed and supported at every stage of their recovery journey.
Asked by: Peter Kyle (Labour - Hove)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to page 9 of the 2020 UK annual report on modern slavery, if he will publish the (a) dates and (b) content of the guidance and training on criminal exploitation provided to Youth Offending Teams.
Answered by Lucy Frazer - Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
We are clear that tackling child criminal exploitation is key to ensure improved outcomes for children.
Youth Offending Teams (YOTs) are run by local authorities which are responsible for putting in place training to meet the needs of their area. The approach of the Crown Prosecution Service in providing training in relation to criminal exploitation and the Modern Slavery Act 2015 has been to engage with YOTs locally, often alongside local community policing. This training has included explaining how the defence under section 45 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 operates, and the role that YOTs have in that process. There are no plans to publish further details of individual training with YOT teams across the country.
The CPS has not contributed to any new guidance for YOTs.