Councils join forces on youth offending

WARRINGTON looks set to join forces with two neighbouring authorities to save money on its Youth Offending Service.
The partnership with Halton and Cheshire West and Chester councils is expected to save each council 15 per cent.
Members of Warrington Borough Council’s executive board will be recommended on Monday to approve the partnership.
Originally it was planned to involve the Macclesfield-based Cheshire East Council in the partnership as well, but early this year they withdrew from the proposal to develop its own service.
Warrington and Halton have operated a joint Youth Offending Team for some years.
It is looked upon as a consistently high performing serving and has achieved a significant reduction in the number of first time offenders over the last three years, the numbers falling from 460 in 2009-2010 to 286 last year.
But there are concerns about maintaining standards in the face of continued reductions in funding.
Last year, both Warrington and Halton made savings as a result of budget reductions across children’s services.
A report to go to the executive board states: “The sustainability of high quality provision will inevitably be at risk if this trend continues and particularly for the provision of specialist services for small numbers of high risk offenders.”
Joining with Cheshire West and Chester will double the size of the Youth Offending Service – but savings of 15 per cent for each of the three authorities are expected.