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Education: Young People in Custody

My Lords, I think that I speak on behalf of the House when I say how delighted we are that the noble Baroness is back in her place this evening. I also say how grateful we are to my noble friend Lady Massey for securing the debate on education for young people in custody and for introducing it with her customary insight and legitimate concern. We were especially glad to hear the impressive maiden speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins. She brings to the House great expertise—in particular, on alcohol abuse and education—and we look forward to her future participation in our debates. I begin by stating unequivocally that custody should always be a last resort for children and young people. The criminal justice system is intended to do all that it can to keep young people from custody whenever there is a viable alternative. The best antidote to youth crime is, of course, a caring family home and a good education. Better family support and better schools are at the heart of government policy. Sure Start children’s centres have steadily increased the support available for disadvantaged families, assisting parents with children in theirearly education, and we have recently announced a £30 million grant to create a new National Academy for Parenting Practitioners. Extended schools are offering a broader range of services, including after-school provision for older children. A new and better relationship is being built up between crime prevention agencies and schools. Safer Schools Partnerships, for example, place specially trained police officers in schools in areas of high crime to promote respect, responsibility and a safer learning environment. I have visited many such schools and have been very impressed with the work and the warm welcome that the schools give to those specially trained police officers. Evaluations show that those partnerships have had a beneficial impact, improving behaviour and attendance and building a better understanding about the role of the police and better links between the police and community. Since January, local authorities have been required to provide positive activities for young people, including those at risk of social exclusion, throughout the school year. In terms of criminal justice, the police and the courts deal with approximately 150,000 young people each year, of which only 3 to 4 per cent receive a custodial sentence lasting an average of four months. It is the Government’s duty to ensure that young offender institutions provide appropriate support to meet these young people’s needs, which are often complex, as my noble friend Lord Judd rightly emphasised. Up to 40 per cent of young people entering custody have mental health problems; more than 80 per cent have tried drugs and are likely to bear the effects of substance misuse; alcohol misuse is common and a high proportion have special educational needs, which are often unidentified. Education plays a critical role in both rehabilitation and reducing re-offending, not least by making young offenders employable after release. Our aim is to give young people the practical and social skills to pursue crime-free lives at the end of their sentences. Yet, unsurprisingly, many in custody have had poor experiences of school. Young offendersare 20 times more likely to be regular truants thanthe general school-age population—hence often the failure to diagnose and address special educational needs. Forty-two per cent of young offenders underachieve in school; most lacking basic literacy and numeracy skills. When we created the Youth Justice Board in 1998, one of its main aims was to ensure that young offenders receive a good education in custody. The same aim underpinned our decision to transfer responsibility for offender education from the Home Office to the DfES in 2001 and our subsequent decisions dramatically to increase both spending and minimum standards. I am glad to tell the House that the current chairman of the Youth Justice Board, Graham Robb, is a former head teacher and passionately committed to improving education for young offenders. I was glad to hear the positive comments of the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, about the YJB’s work. Although I fully accept that, as the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, has said, much remains to be done. However, I think that he would accept that the position is better than when he was writing his powerful reports a decade ago. Since the creation of the Youth Justice Board, we have seen significant improvements in educational provision. During 2005-06, the 17 young offender institutions delivered an average of 28.2 hours of education, training and personal development activity per individual per week. That is a fourfold increase compared to 2002. In the 15 secure children’s homes and the four secure training centres, the percentage of young people receiving 30 hours or more education and training was 79.9 per cent and 99.4 per cent respectively. Government spending on young offender custodial education—in my experience, spending is alwaysthe prime indicator of whether a Government are committed to something or not—rose from £5 million to £20 million, a fourfold increase between 2002 and 2005, which has meant that more institutions can employ far more teachers. I echo the tribute that my noble friend Lady Gibson paid to the work of teachers in young offender institutions. That also means that they can employ more learning support assistants and arrange additional specialist services for young people under their care. From 31 July last year, all young offender institutions became part of the new Offender Learning and Skills Service, whereby their education and training programmes are planned and funded by the Learning and Skills Council. This is creating a more co-ordinated and consistent service and represents an important first step towards integrating offender learning with mainstream education and skills training, which—and I say this in reply to my noble friend Lord Judd—is my department’s guiding principle for action in this area. Although I accept that he wishes that we had been able to go further in the recent Learning and Skills Act. One of the Learning and Skills Council’s duties is to monitor the qualifications achieved by all young offenders. In 2005-06, 42.5 per cent of those in young offender institutions improved by one skill level in literacy and numeracy. The fact that we now have this kind of data responds to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham. There is far better tracking of individual offenders than used to be the case. Given the Learning and Skills Council’s more recent involvement in this area, we would hope to see this figure rise in the next set of results and to see much better and consistent tracking of individual young people. From 2007-08, we have also improved access to education maintenance allowances for young people in custody. With immediate effect, young people can apply for EMAs while in custody, without the need to submit evidence of financial income. That means that they will receive the EMA when they enrol on a valid learning programme. Such measures are simplifying the application process for offenders and are avital incentive to engage in education or training immediately upon release. Another step we are taking is to review the local authority funding formula for Connexions services aimed at young people in custody, to help ease their transition back into community life. So we are making progress. The noble Baroness, Lady Morris, asked if we are satisfied with the status quo. I can tell her absolutely straightforwardly that we are not. We believe that much more needs to be done, while accepting that transforming the prospects of young offenders is extremely difficult, not least when, as the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, so rightly noted, some have serious behavioural problems, refuse to attend classes, or are distracted by other worries. Our concern is systematically to raise the availability and quality of provision, to reduce variations in the quality of teaching and support between institutions, and to gain a more accurate picture of performance in each as a spur to further improvements. My noble friend Lady Massey asked about intergovernmental working. I am glad to be able to tell her that to bring about further improvements following the Green Paper in 2005, we created a new policy team in my department to work closely with the Home Office, the Department for Work and Pensions, the Youth Justice Board and the Learning and Skills Council on reviewing provision. There is now an inter-ministerial group on reducing reoffending, including representation from the Department for Communities and Local Government. In our recent Next Steps document, which was published last December and which I circulated to noble Lords before the debate, we have encouraged children’s trusts, local authorities and the new local partnerships to develop vocational education for 14 to 19 year-olds and to pay greater attention to education services for young offenders. Many local authorities had, in fact, already set their own targets. Kensington and Chelsea, for example, is focusing on the percentage of 16 to 18 year-olds leaving custody who then participate in full-time education, training or employment. We would like more local authorities to follow that lead. We are now in the middle of a public consultation on the Next Steps document, which runs until 4 July. It covers all young people in England aged between10 and 17 who are supervised by the youth justice system, both in custody and in the community, with a particular focus on offenders of compulsory school age. It includes consideration of all three types of secure establishment: young offender institutions, secure training centres, and secure children’s homes. Responses to our consultation will play a key role in how we prioritise the issues and develop policy, and the Government are encouraged by the input from many working in the youth justice and voluntary sectors. In reply to the direct question asked by my noble friend Lady Massey, I can tell her that we are committed to publishing further plans by the end of this year in response to that consultation. I shall briefly highlight four key areas covered by the Next Steps document, which are of direct relevance to today’s debate. First, we are exploring ways of ensuring that custodial regimes are organised to best promote participation in education. For some young people, the structured environment of a custodial institution is conducive to education. For others with poor memories of school, however, other incentives are needed to engage them in learning. In particular, we recognise the high incidence of special educational needs among young offenders. Issues under consideration include the prompt sharing of information from existing SEN statements, and ensuring that the additional support identified in those statements is provided in youth custody. Secondly, as the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, rightly highlighted, we need a curriculum that is well suited to the needs of young offenders. Programmes should make teaching basic literacy and numeracy a priority, but they must also go on to equip young people with wider skills—including PSHE, social skills, and relationship skills, which the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, mentioned—which young people need both to apply for jobs and to become better citizens when they leave their custodial settings. This means identifying the means to provide consistent learning programmes across the secure estate, as transfers between establishments are sometimes unavoidable, and spanning the period before and after custody. It also requires the recognition that many young offenders in custody do not respond well to a traditional classroom environment. We are therefore considering how the current reforms to the 14-to-19 curriculum, including the introduction of new vocational diplomas, can be applied to young offenders. The transition from custody back to community is an especially critical point for young people. The supervision and support provided in custody must continue on release. This requires planning for education, training or employment early in a young person’s sentence. The third area to highlight is workforce development, rightly mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and my noble friend Lady Gibson. A set of questions and points were raised in the contributions and I will respond to them in writing. Suffice it to say that we recognise the need for considerably greater attention to workforce development in this area. The fourth area that we are examining is the accountability framework for custodial education. During the Committee stage of the Education and Inspections Bill, some noble Lords argued that local authorities should have greater responsibility in this area; we are looking at this issue. I hope I have been able to demonstrate the extreme seriousness with which we in the Youth Justice Board take this issue. When we say ““every child matters””, that includes every child in custody. We will continue to improve the educational welfare of young offenders. We are very grateful for all the comments made in today’s debate; I hope that they will help us to forge better policy in this area.