Buckinghamshire Youth Justice Strategic Plan 2026 to 2029

Youth Justice Services are measured against three key national outcomes: reducing first-time entrants, reducing reoffending, and reducing the use of custody.

There has been a reduction in the rate of children becoming First Time Entrants to the youth justice system between 2024 and 2025. In actual numbers, this is a decrease from 89 children to 60. Performance in Buckinghamshire is stronger than that seen across the south east and nationally.

The Partnership recognise the importance of prevention and early intervention in sustaining this reduction in First Time Entrants. This is a key priority for 2026 to 2029.

Buckinghamshire YJST review the period of time it takes between an offence being committed and an outcome being received (timeliness).

Data from the first 3 months of 2026 identifies Buckinghamshire as an outlier across the Thames Valley, with some outcomes taking longer than the average seen across the region.

This trend could have an impact on First Time Entrant data moving forward, as this can delay the YJST engaging with the child. Work is ongoing with the Police to understand why this is.

The rate of reoffending in Buckinghamshire is significantly lower than that seen across all comparator areas. In actual numbers, this represents 6 children reoffending from the January to March 2023 cohort and 4 from the January to March 2024 cohort.

During the last 12 months, the service has continued to focus on Child First Practice and enhancing the individualised offer to children. Management oversight of interventions has been strengthened to take a holistic view. This will provide an opportunity to explore areas of practice that may be impacting positively on reoffending rates moving forward.

Buckinghamshire YJST continue to hold a vacant seconded Probation Officer post. The number of transitions between youth and adult provision is small; however, the service does not currently monitor reoffending rates for those who do transfer to Probation.

Joint work is ongoing to better understand this group of children and the continuing impact the vacant post has on reoffending.

The potential impact of the Knife Possession guidance and changes to the Thames Valley Out of Court Resolutions guidance may have a negative impact on reoffending, as children are likely to be responded to more robustly.

The custodial rate has reduced between 2024 and 2025, with Buckinghamshire performing better than both the YJS family and national data. In actual numbers, this represents a reduction from 3 custodial sentences in 2024 to 2 in 2025.

All children receiving a custodial outcome are sentenced following the completion of a Pre-Sentence Report by the YJST. Reports are subject to a robust Quality Assurance process that considers the child’s individual needs, the seriousness of the offence and the impact on the persons and communities harmed.

A custody panel ensures that partners contribute to a robust sentencing proposal that is put forward for the Court to make its decision. The Partnership Board reviews all custodial outcomes to identify learning.

Any serious offending may lead to a custodial sentence, despite robust community sentencing proposals.

A single offence committed as part of a group could lead to multiple children receiving custodial outcomes, which would have a significant impact on this data.

Outcomes for children can be impacted by local and national priorities across our partnership. For example, the government’s focus on halving knife crime by 2030. Partners need to ensure that changes in their practice or priorities are shared with the YJST Partnership Board.