Luton's youth offending service is one of the best in the country

Luton could head a data-based league table of youth offending services in England and Wales this summer, although a top five position is more likely, a meeting heard.

Only two young people from the town have been sentenced to custody in the last 18 months, the borough council's scrutiny crime and disorder committee was told at its annual meeting on March 10.

"We should be proud of what we've achieved," explained Luton youth offending service manager Dave Collins.

"Luton continues to exceed the performance of all of our comparative groups. Realistically we should be on a par with our statistical family.

"That's the group of youth offending services in the country of similar demographic and make-up to our own.

"We're actually outperforming those, as well as the national and regional position, regionally for the first time this year. That's a huge achievement.

"Some of the areas we're dealing with nationally are affluent and don't have the kind of issues we face in Luton.

"On our current first time entrants we've 32 young people come into the criminal justice system since April 2021, which is our lowest number in history.

"Our reoffending at the moment is 28 per cent, which may seem quite high. But it isn't. It's 33 per cent in our statistical family, while the national figure is 36 per cent."

In Surrey, "which has some fairly affluent areas", their reoffending is 42 per cent, he said. "So 28 per cent that's phenomenal.

"Our youth custody final custodial outcome for our reporting year is probably going to be Luton's lowest annual figure. We currently have only two young people sentenced to custody in the last 18 months.

"This is why I say it's positive because that's been achieved against a backdrop of cuts, whether it's the devastating ones we saw at the start of the pandemic or more nationally.

"But it's also against the rise in offending, reoffending and use of custody nationally in other youth offending services.

"So the youth justice board usually does its validated annual data and we normally receive it in July, and they do a league table of all 155 youth offending services in England and Wales.

"It's highly likely we'll be in the top five again and perhaps even top," he added. "The work we've done particularly at early intervention has reduced the statutory youth justice cohort.

"This has come as an increasing early intervention footprint through different initiatives, such as the multi-agency gang panel (MAGPan) and the Amber Unit.

"As our statutory youth justice cohort has shrunk, our early intervention cohort has grown. The continued development of MAGPan is key to the challenge we face and also to future planning.

"Custody for young people is a dangerous place. It perpetuates a cycle going on into adult life. We know the cost of late interventions.

"So keeping young people out of custody and keeping them subject to statutory orders and intervention is the best way of going forward."

Recent episodes have led to two fatalities and a further recent incident, which has led to a rise in secure remands, according to a report to the committee.

"The gravity of those offences suggests a high likelihood of custodial outcomes," said the report.

"But these are likely to be staggered over the course of the next six to 12 months, so there'll be an impact on service performance in this area in the future."