Youth Inclusion Programme (Hansard, 17 March 2003)

§ Simon Hughes

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) whether he plans to expand the number of areas in which the Youth Inclusion Programme operates; [102459]

(3) how many (a) robberies, (b) burglaries, (c) drugs offences, (d) offences of violence against the person and (e) thefts of motor vehicles were recorded in each of the Youth Inclusion Programme areas in (i) 1999, (ii) 2000, (iii) 2001 and (iv) 2002; [102460]

(4) how many 13 to 16-year-olds participated in the Youth Inclusion Programme in (i) 1999, (ii) 2000, (iii) 2001 and (iv) 2002; and what percentage of those young people are considered to remain at risk of offending; [102462]

(5) how many 13 to 16-year-olds were arrested in each of the Youth Inclusion Programme areas in (i) 1999, (ii) 2000, (iii) 2001 and (iv) 2002. [102461]

§ Hilary Benn

The Youth Inclusion Programme (YIP) is managed by the Youth Justice Board. Since 1999, 70 YIP schemes have run in the most deprived neighbourhoods in England and Wales, each targeting the 50 young people, aged 13 to 16 in the local area, at greatest risk of social exclusion.

We know that a total of 22,688 young people have been actively engaged in YIP schemes since the programme began, but a detailed breakdown of the number of 13 to 16-year-olds that have participated in 596W each of the last four years in each of the 70 schemes is not available centrally. Nor do we hold data on arrests of all 13 to 16-year-olds, or overall levels of recorded crimes, broken down by the neighbourhoods in which each YIP scheme operates.

We measure the success of the YIP schemes principally through arrest rates among the scheme's participants, which show that overall arrest rates have been reduced by 64 per cent. among those in the target group who have been actively engaged in the programme. In addition, independent evaluation of the YIP programme showed that between January and March 2002 around 70 per cent. of YIP areas showed reductions in overall crime, with reductions up to 40 per cent. We consider these to be more reliable measures of success than attempting to assess the extent to which the programme has reduced the risk that individual participants will subsequently offend.

We announced on 21 October last year that the existing YIP programme will continue for a further three years from April 2003, with Home Office funding of £7 million per year. This is the minimum provision and does not prevent additional schemes being funded, for example by Children's Fund partnerships in meeting the requirement we are placing on them from April this year, to spend at least 25 per cent. of their allocations on specific youth crime reduction measures.

We are looking more fundamentally at relevant services, programmes and interventions for young people at risk of crime and other negative outcomes in the Green Paper on children at risk that we will be publishing later in the spring.