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 increase the amount of regular face-to-face contact looked-after inmates have with their (a) home local authority social worker and (b) personal adviser between formal reviews.

The dedicated social workers located in HM Young Offender Institutions support staff to meet their safeguarding and looked-after child responsibilities, and facilitate good working relationships between establishments and local authorities. Additionally, the recently revised ‘Working Together to Safeguard Children’ guidance includes direction for local authorities when a child becomes looked-after as a result of being remanded to youth detention accommodation.

The Youth Custody Service (YCS) is developing further guidance on how professionals in establishments and the community should work together to facilitate a looked-after child’s contact with their social worker and how to resolve issues where these arise. This will be available to staff by May 2024. The YCS will also be creating opportunities for staff to come together and share good practice in this area.

The YCS has recently improved processes to collate and analyse data, both on community professionals visiting children in custody, and on the social care status of children and young people in its care. The higher-quality data will help inform future work to improve care for looked-after children.

Work is in progress to improve data quality in the Youth Justice Application Framework and Asset Plus framework, including the looked-after child field.