Home News Consultation to identify £13.5m of savings launched

Consultation to identify £13.5m of savings launched

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The Youth Justice Board (YJB) is seeking views on its proposals to find £13.5m of in-year savings.

As part of wider government action on deficit reduction, the Secretary of State for Justice, Michael Gove, has required the YJB to make £12m (5%) savings from its 2015/16 budget.

The £12m required is in addition to a deficit the YJB already has in its 2015/16 budget as a result of earlier cuts. Efficiency measures already taken have reduced this deficit to £1.5m – meaning that it now needs to find a total saving of £13.5m in-year.

consultation has been published setting out how the YJB believes the savings required, can best be made.

The YJB is proposing to make the savings through a range of measures it has identified which total £4.5m. It is then proposing that the remaining £9m of savings are made by reducing the Youth Justice Grant to youth offending teams (YOTs).

Lin Hinnigan, YJB Chief Executive, said:

“In the last six years we have delivered £287m of savings across the youth justice system, primarily as a result of the reduction in the numbers of young people in custody. Having already made such significant savings, we do not have many options remaining for where we can save more.

“It is vital that those working in the youth justice sector give us their views so we can continue to work together to find the best way forward. We want to protect the successes we have achieved together, while finding the savings required. We will consider all possible options.”

The number of young people in custody has fallen from 2,418 in 2009/10 to 1,048 (or 57% reduction) in 2014/15 (provisional). The Youth Justice Grant has decreased by £58m from £143m in 2009/10 to £85m this year.

The consultation will run for three weeks until September 16 2015 when the YJB will evaluate the responses received. It will then publish the main findings on its website.

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