Work by Swindon’s Youth Justice Service to try and prevent young people and children from getting involved in criminal activity seems to be working, councillors were told.

A report to Swindon Borough Council’s children’s health care and education overview and scrutiny committee said that the number of children entering the criminal justice system is low and below regional and national averages.

Youth justice officer Michael O’Connor told the committee: “It is a key aim of the youth justice service to reduce the numbers of children in the system and especially first-time entrants.

“The low number of first-time entrants is positive and points to the fact that early intervention and diversion is working.”

Mr O’Connor’s report showed there were 88 children with whom the youth justice team worked in 2020-21.

Of the 88, 63 had substance misuse issues, 55 mental health concerns and 40 were deemed vulnerable or at risk of sexual or criminal exploitation.

There were 25 who had needed child protection plans and 48 were considered to be, or have been, children in need.”

Mr O’Connor said that showed the justice team were working with children with increasingly complex needs – and that was particularly true of those in a pattern of re-offending.

He said: “The low number of first-time entrants means those children still in the justice system are more complex where re-offending is more likely - the re-offending rate has increased slightly in 2018-19 , but out local data suggests this has significantly reduced in 2020-21.”

He told the committee the Youth Justice team had made a four-year plan, whereas most local authorities had plans for a year at a time.

And he emphasised that it would be a “child-first approach”. He said: “Abuse trauma and neglect are likely to be in the life histories of children who offend. Simply punishing children who have experienced neglect or trauma or abuse simply doesn’t work, we have to be more sophisticated in working out how to get them to desist.”

Mr O’ Connor gave examples of simple changes already made: “We’ve changed the name from the Youth Offending Team to Youth Justice Service to take away the focus from offending. We don’t use ‘young people’ as much as we do ‘children’ to remind everyone that we are working with children.”