Who do we report to?

Accountability in Kent

The Youth Offending Service is both a children’s service and a criminal justice service. Kent County Council is responsible for ensuring that there is a youth offending service in Kent. For management purposes we are part of the county council’s Communities directorate.

We are formally accountable to the Kent Youth Justice Board on which our major partners are represented. The Board provides some of our funding and sets quality and performance standards for our work. We are also accountable to and represented on the Kent Children’s Trust Board and the Kent Children’s Safeguarding Board.

Also locally, we are members of the Kent Criminal Justice Board which brings together the main criminal justice agencies in Kent.

We are required to produce an annual Youth Justice Plan for Kent and make quarterly reports on our progress and achievements to the Youth Justice Board (YJB), which also monitors our performance. We undergo regular inspections led by HM Inspectorate of Prisons (HMIP).

We also report to the Kent Partnership’s Stronger and Safer Communities Group. ‘Stronger and Safer Communities’ is a major and consistent theme in local and national strategic plans. Locally, these include KCC’s medium and long term plans, Vision for Kent and Towards 2010. Our work makes an important contribution to realising their aims.

Read about national accountability.