KEY DECISION
POLICE AND CRIME COMMISSIONER FOR BEDFORDSHIRE
Title and Reference – PCC/D/093
Subject: Youth Offending Service (YOS) Funding Agreement 23-25
Report of: Police and Crime Commissioner
Date: 11/04/2023
Summary:
Bedford Youth Offending Service (YOS) and Luton Youth Offending Service (YOS) have received £60,000 funding each per annum to fund a Police Custody Suite Triage provision.

The statutory KPI of reducing First Time Entrants (FTE) into the Youth Justice system, which is underpinned by triage and diversion, is a joint indicator for youth justice and Police. Currently the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner (OPCC) makes a partial contribution to the overall delivery in Luton and Bedford.

In Bedford, the YOS is part of Children’s Services provided by both Bedford Borough Council and Central Bedfordshire Council. Bedford YOS supports children and young people aged between 10-18 years old, offering support after arrest to provide early intervention with the aim of reducing the reoffending.

Both Bedford and Luton YOS services are part funded by the OPCC and their total funding allocation is supported by other partners such as Local Authorities given the complexities of triage and diversion.

There is a shared statutory performance area of reducing first time entrants between Bedfordshire police and Bedford YOS and Luton YOS. This duty is reported to the Community Safety Partnership, the Criminal Justice Board and the YOS Strategic Managements Boards for overall management and oversight.

Recommendation

A recommendation is made for the office of the police and Crime Commissioner to commit to a two-year funding arrangement from 1st April 2023 to 31st March 2025, for both Bedford YOS and Luton YOS, offering sustainability against the statutory duty held by Bedfordshire Police. The funding is proposed to continue at £60,000 per YOS, per annum, equating to a total expenditure of £240,000 across the two years for a countywide YOS provision. The Commissioning Team recommends drawing up a new grant agreement for a 2-year period, detailing funding of £60,000 per year to be paid from the Community Safety Fund, aligning to priority 4.2 of the Police and Crime Plan, to ensure the Community Safety Fund is balanced across offender management and prevention of criminality.

It is proposed to award funding directly to Bedford YOS and Luton YOS for purposes outlined above on the basis of The Public Contracts Regulations 2015, No.102, Part 2, Chapter 1, Section 1, Sub-section 3, Regulation 12 which relates to Public contracts between entities within the public sector (in this case us awarding funding to Central Bedfordshire Council and Luton Borough Council) which states that:

“Contracts which establish or implement co-operation between contracting authorities.
(7) A contract concluded exclusively between two or more contracting authorities falls outside the scope of this Part where all of the following conditions are fulfilled:
(a)the contract establishes or implements a co-operation between the participating contracting authorities with the aim of ensuring that public services they have to perform are provided with a view to achieving objectives they have in common;
(b)the implementation of that co-operation is governed solely by considerations relating to the public interest; and
(c)the participating contracting authorities perform on the open market less than 20% of the activities concerned by the co-operation.”
Additionally, given the shared duty to performance and the partnership funding arrangements for both Youth Offending Services, a recommendation is made to streamline monitoring process and financial management, taking into considering data and performance measures that are discussed with Community Safety Partnerships and at the Criminal Justice Board and the YOS Strategic Managements Boards where strategic oversight sits. As the Youth Offending Service provision cannot be dissected into project areas per funder, the streamlined approach will allow the Commissioning Team to evaluate the funding contribution as part of the whole service, understanding wider concerns and performance indicators along with other partner agencies. The commissioning team propose to develop partnership/ collaborative working with such partners to consider the service holistically.

To note decision
Bedfordshire Police and Crime Commissioner
I hereby approve the recommendations above.