Youth Justice Framework - Preventing Offending by Young People:
A Framework for Action -
published on Thursday 19 June 2008
The purpose of the Framework is to outline a shared ambition of what we want to do to as national and local agencies to prevent, divert, manage and change offending behaviour by children and young people - and how we want to do it.
The Framework has been jointly developed and is formally owned by the Scottish Government, the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA), the Association of Chief Police Officers Scotland (ACPOS), Scottish Children's Reporter Administration (SCRA) and the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS), as key national delivery agencies. It is also endorsed by the relevant inspectorates and professional organisations: HMIE, Care Commission, SWIA, HMIC and Audit Scotland; the Association of Directors of Social Work (ADSW). All of these partners will have a part to play in taking the Framework forward through their strategic, operational and regulatory responsibilities.
The over-arching shared commitment is to work together as national and local partners to deliver real improvements on the ground. The framework promotes a child centred approach - in line with the principles of Getting it right for every child - with reference to the family and the wider community.
In taking forward the Framework we will focus on prevention; early and effective intervention; managing high risk; victims and community confidence; and planning and performance management.
We are currently developing with stakeholders a governance structure for delivery against the framework which ensures drive, consistency and accountability without diverting effort onto process rather than action. Accordingly, we propose that responsibility at a national level for taking delivery of the framework forward will rest with a group comprising representation from of all of the partners. Where possible we will use existing mechanisms to drive this work forward.
This Framework sets out a new shared approach to achieving better and more consistent ways to tackle offending by young people based on this Government's belief that appropriate action must be taken at the earliest possible stage.