Attendance Centres (Hansard, 27 January 2000)

§ Lord Bassam of Brighton

In January last year, we set up a small working group, including attendance centre representatives and other experts, to consider the centres' future operation. It made a number of useful proposals for reform of their management and operation, including developing more individual programmes to tackle offending problems.

For the 84 junior attendance centres we have decided to combine reforms on these lines with organisational changes to match the philosophy of the youth justice reforms launched in the Government's November 1997 White Paper No More Excuses—A New Approach to Tackling Youth Crime in England and Wales.

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From April 2000, the Youth Justice Board for England and Wales will take over from the Home Office the central responsibility for commissioning and funding junior attendance centres. The board will invite youth offending teams to start taking over as local agents for these centres from April, that is generally from chief officers of police. Close liaison with the police will continue, through police membership of youth offending teams. The local changes will be made first in a number of pilot areas. They will also be invited to develop the centres' programmes in line with the working group's principles, and liaise with the courts to ensure centres play an appropriate role in the new range of youth justice disposals.

Senior attendance centres, which cater mainly for offenders aged 18 to 24, will remain the responsibility of the Home Office nationally and the police locally. Their future operation will be reviewed in the context of the adult sentencing framework.