Slough Borough Council’s cabinet has approved a new youth justice plan to prevent young people from entering the criminal justice system.
The action plan was put into place following an inspection from His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Probation (HMIP) which rated the service as ‘Inadequate’ in January this year.
The recommendations for Slough’s Youth Justice Service (YJS) following the inspection included having better communication with children and reviewing the training of staff and volunteers.
Ben Short, the director of operations (SCF) for Slough Borough Council said: “We continue to focus through ACT NOW, so early prevention for knife crime, our early help service which works with children and young people, and we have also recently developed our partnership ‘risks outside the home’ team.
“We work very closely with young people who are at risk of either exploitation or on the verge of becoming involved in criminality.”
ACT NOW is an initiative set up in 2023 to steer children who have been arrested for crimes such as assault or robbery away from re-offending.
Image: LDRS
The programme was put into place across Slough, Maidenhead and Windsor in collaboration with Thames Valley Police.
A report, which went before cabinet members at Observatory House on Monday (July 21) stated the four priorities of the strategy are ‘addressing disproportionality, strengthening victim engagement, fostering co-production and early intervention’.
Mr Short added: “The four key priority areas have been identified through co-production with children, young people, families, partners and leaders across the town.
“We think they are realistic areas to be focusing on. We have an absolute focus on prevention and early help which has contributed to the reduction in first time entrants.”
The number of first-time entrants in the borough’s youth justice system is decreasing faster in Slough compared to both regional and national levels.
Between 2022-23, 230 children entered the criminal justice system, compared to only 64 young people between 2024 and 2025.
However, the number of children reoffending has increased over the last four years, from 18 per cent in March 2021 to 30.5 per cent in March 2023.
A report in the youth justice plan stated, ‘we still expect the official statistics will show that Slough’s reoffending rate is better than England and Wales.’
