Case study taken from:
Learning Labs - Evaluation of the Pilot Projects 
University College Northampton

The Youth Offending Service was established in the local authority early in 2000 under the ‘Crime and Disorder Act’ and is a statutory, multi-agency service. Its main responsibilities include crime prevention and crime reduction among young people. It works within prescriptive national standards working to an agenda set out by the youth justice board which reports directly to the Home Secretary.

There was little time to prepare the new service with no new money or infrastructure and with staff largely inherited from the Social Services Resource for Youth Justice together with staff seconded from the police, probation, education and health services. The new national standards established by the ‘Crime and Disorder Act’, introduced a significant shift towards earlier intervention with young people. This included the development of information systems which were more efficient in capturing and recording incidents of youth crime and a greater focus on restorative justice dealing more effectively with victim needs. All this led to a huge increase in the work-load of the new service

The service operates through 6 managers working in 5 geographically based Youth Offending Teams (YOT's) and a specialist Court Team. Initially the focus was on working through the education system to make contact with potential and actual offenders. However, youth offending peaks at nearly seventeen years of age, so a different approach is needed with sixteen to eighteen year olds compared to fourteen and fifteen year olds both in terms of location and attitude. The education system, therefore, is not the main access point for all offenders and potential offenders. A further complication is that, with the delegation of authority to head teachers, the service has to deal with hundreds of schools instead of one education service. Those developments substantially increased the work-load of the YOTS when seeking to divert young people from crime.

The creation of the new service led to considerations on how to proceed in developing objectives, team building and operational effectiveness. The head of the service said, "We had set up task groups because there was so much to do; we had a critical path analysis project plan which went on forever. It had a life of its own and it didn't work". The formal task groups proved ineffective, "[They] led to very little outcome and I wouldn't do it again". An administrative officer, with some experience in the authority, had come into contact previously with an officer from the City Council’s management development function and introduced him to the head of the service. Discussions took place between the head of the new service and the management development officer on how to ensure those seconded from different agencies could work effectively together at a strategic level and how to get staff groups and teams working together at an operational level. From those discussions a number of labs were established.

One lab involved members of the Strategic Steering Group, formerly known as the Community Safety Partnership, chaired by the head of the service and involving a diverse group of people from various agencies within the community. These included representatives from the regional police force, regional fire service and probation service. The focus of this lab was described as "a visioning exercise" seeking to establish clarity about the national standards and how to implement those standards locally.

A second lab involved the 'Youth Offending Service Task Group' made up largely of middle managers plus the agencies involved in the new service. The principal purposes of this lab was to bring together newly formed teams, ensuring structures were understood and seeking to get everyone to 'sign up' to the national objectives.

The strategic lab met over 3 half-day sessions. It focused on trying to deliver a national agenda in a big city with areas of real deprivation and social crime. Methods had to be found for moving from an approach to youth offending operating largely through the education system to one which would also deal with those beyond school leaving age.

The second lab brought the middle managers of the service together consisting mainly of the managers and deputy managers of the 5 geographical and specialist court teams together with representation from the probation service. The principal purposes of the lab were to set city-wide objectives within the context of the national standards and to begin the process of building an effective management team in a new service. In assessing progress so far one participant observed that "we are achieving levels of consistency across the city, partly as a result of those sessions".

The head and deputy head of the service were present in the earlier sessions and participants felt that this had been helpful because core information and objectives were made clear to everyone, the agenda and priorities of the new service were agreed to by everybody.

One participant reported that the lab had enabled team building. "We are getting towards a management team, we've moved a lot in eight months but there is still some way to go. But if we hadn't gone through this process we would still be a team of managers rather than a management team".

With the range of agencies involved there are significant logistical problems to be overcome in arranging planning sessions which required time and resources. In particular participants reported that fitting the lab into a packed diary was a pressure. "Trying to match diaries, having short time scales to work to in establishing the new service and the dearth of infrastructure and staff resources was a problem".

This is a new service, barely a year old, taking responsibility for work previously carried out by a variety of agencies. The labs have a continuing life and were generally felt to be a useful development with participants suggesting that they would like to see them continue. In particular the early labs had assisted in developing a strategy and mission for the service and in beginning the process of building an effective management team capable of creating consistency in their approach to youth justice across the city.

Contacts for further information

Birmingham City Council web site

Tarik Chawdry Birmingham City Council

Steve Trivett Birmingham City Council

Last Updated: 05/2002