Equality impact assessment - youth offending service

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1. What is the name of the policy or service that is being assessed?

Wiltshire Youth Offending Service

2. What are the aims of the policy or service? Whose needs is it designed to meet? What are the current priorities?

• Preventing crime and the fear of crime
  Ensuring services are targeted at children and young people at risk of offending and that they meet the needs of victims and communities.
• Identifying and dealing with young people who offend
  Ensuring that children and young people who do offend are identified and dealt with without delay proportionate to the seriousness of offending.
• Reducing re-offending
  Promoting interventions with young offenders that reduce the factors associated with offending, increase the protective factors and reinforce the responsibilities of parents.

3. In what ways might this policy or service affect some groups of people differently? Might some groups find it harder to access the service? Do some groups have particular needs that are not well met by the current policy or service?

• Issues of rurality and lack of public transport can make it difficult for some young people to access the service, even though most are compelled to do so on a legal basis.
• Both YOS operational units in Melksham and Salisbury do not comply with the Disability Discrimination Act. and neither base currently has a secure waiting area which causes health and safety issues.
• Young people from a Black and Minority Ethnic background are over represented in the Youth justice system in Wiltshire.

4. What evidence do you have for your judgement? Is there evidence of public concern (e.g. complaints)? Have staff raised concerns? Is there local or national research to suggest that there could be a problem?

• Whilst we have a complaints procedure, we have had no formal complaints in the last year.
• YOS staff have raised concerns about the health and safety issues in YOS premises.
• A race audit and action plan was undertaken in 2005 and confirmed the over representation of BME young people in the youth justice system in Wiltshire which is sadly in line with national statistics.

5. Who have you consulted with as part of your assessment? What were the results? Have you published the results of that consultation? If so, where?

• We have consulted with YOS stakeholders in respect of the complaints procedure.
• We consult with staff via a health and safety group on an ongoing basis about health and safety issues
• We consulted YOS stakeholders and the Wiltshire Race Equality Council in compiling the race audit and action plan.

6. If you have found that the policy or service might have an adverse impact on a particular group of people, can you justify this?

We have an enforcement policy, which may have an adverse impact on young people who have difficulty accessing the YOS, but this can be justified by our responsibilities to the courts to uphold any orders we make and to the public in managing the risks posed by young people.

7. If the impact cannot be justified, what do you intend to do about this? Are there changes that you could introduce which would make the policy or service work better for this group of people? Is further research or consultation required?

Not applicable

8. How will you monitor the take-up or impact of the policy or service in future?

Not applicable

9. What actions do you plan to take as a result of this equality impact assessment? Please state any resource implications

We intend to review our diversity policy which was written in January 2004 and to monitor our Race Action Plan implemented in 2005.

10. There is a legal requirement to publish the outcomes of Equality Impact Assessments. Please outline how / where this will happen

Via the Wiltshire YOS webpage alongside our Race Audit and Race Action plan which is already available there.

11. Name of person completing form

Head of Youth Offending Team

Date assessment completed

17 October 2006

12. Senior manager approval

Assistant Director Resources, Improvement and Young People

Date

17 October 2006

Last updated: 13 May 2009