Youth Offending Teams

(asked on 15th October 2020) - View Source

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of trends in the (a) number and (b) type of concerns measured by youth offending teams using the AssetPlus assessment tool, during the covid-19 outbreak.


Answered by
Lucy Frazer Portrait
Lucy Frazer
Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
This question was answered on 20th October 2020

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic the Youth Justice Board (YJB) has actively monitored a range of existing and new sources of information to evaluate the impact on children coming into contact with Youth Offending Teams. AssetPlus data is included in the oversight of YOT performance, and to protect vulnerable children and sustain best outcomes for children under COVID-19 restrictions.

The YJB plan to publish updated and additional data from AssetPlus again as Experimental Statistics under the Code of Practice [COP] for statistics in January 2021. The forthcoming publication will cover up to 31st March 2020 and will not focus specifically on the COVID-19 period.

Note that experimental statistics are a subset of newly developed or innovative official statistics undergoing evaluation. They are developed under the guidance of the Head of Profession for Statistics and published to involve users and stakeholders in the assessment of their suitability and quality at an early stage. [‘Regulatory Guidance Experimental statistics – official statistics in development’, https://osr.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Regulatory-Guidance-Experimental-Statistics-2019.pdf].

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