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This is a report on the outcomes of a targeted consultation held between 16 September 2024 and 11 October 2024.

The consultation welcomed views on the proposal to remove the 鈥榗hildren鈥檚 resettlement鈥� judgement from the secure training centres (STCs) inspection framework while retaining a key focus on the plans and support for children moving back into the community and children moving to the adult estate.

The proposal intended to put more emphasis in the framework on how inspectors assess the care and planning for children moving to the adult prison estate. This sits alongside how they assess the care and planning for children returning to the community.

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Introduction

STCs look after children and young people aged from 12 to 18 years who are either remanded to custody by the courts or who are serving a custodial sentence. STCs are purpose-built provisions. There is 1 remaining STC in England. It is jointly inspected by the Office for Standards in Education, Children鈥檚 Services and Skills (Ofsted), His Majesty鈥檚 Inspectorate of Prisons (HMIP) and the Care Quality Commission (CQC) under arrangements made with the Ministry of Justice.^{[footnote 1]}

This report summarises the responses to a targeted consultation carried out by Ofsted, HMIP and CQC on the proposals for changes to the inspection framework, for implementation in April 2025.

We asked stakeholders for feedback on the following proposed changes to the inspection framework:

• removing the 鈥榗hildren鈥檚 resettlement鈥� judgement while retaining a key focus on the plans and support for children moving back into the community and children moving to the adult estate

• moving the evaluative statements on resettlement practice to the 鈥榦verall experiences and progress of children鈥� section of the inspection framework and renaming this 鈥榯ransitions鈥�. Transitions will cover both children transitioning back to the community and children transitioning to the adult estate

Rationale

Youth Justice Board statistics show that children serving sentences for serious offences now make up 21% of the secure estate population.^{[footnote 2]}

When children serve longer sentences for serious offences and reach adulthood, they then move to the adult prison estate.

The current inspection framework has a specific judgement area of 鈥榬esettlement鈥�. The inspectorates鈥� view is that the framework does not put sufficient emphasis on how inspectors assess the care and planning for children transferring or transitioning to the adult prison estate.

The consultation method

The targeted consultation was sent directly to key stakeholders and ran between 16 September 2024 and 11 October 2024.

We received a total of 6 responses.

We held a face-to-face consultation meeting with children and young people at Oakhill STC.

We are very grateful to all the children and young people, organisations and individuals who took the time to participate so constructively in the consultation.

Findings

Stakeholders in the main did not disagree with the proposal to remove the resettlement judgement. However, some were concerned that resettlement practice may not receive the same level of scrutiny from inspectors because of the proposed changes.

There were some concerns that transitions may still not capture all the different routes a child may take and that alignment with language used in other frameworks would help with clarity.

Children and young people did not have any specific views on the proposals.

The way forward

The focus on resettlement will not be diminished or lost. The key issues on resettlement in the current inspection framework will move to the 鈥榦verall experiences and progress鈥� judgement area.

We will amend the wording in the inspection framework to make the different pathways for children explicit, using commonly agreed language, such as resettlement, transition and transfer.