The Youth Justice Board (YJB) is responsible for commissioning and purchasing places in the under-18 secure estate. It monitors the demand for places and adjusts capacity across the estate when necessary in response to changes in demand.
The YJB recently analysed the level of demand for secure training centre and secure children's home places in order to determine the optimum number of SCH beds to be commissioned in the recent contracting round. It looked at data relating to the last three years. The YJB is confident that the number of places being commissioned over the next 12 months in each sector of the under-18 secure estate will meet demand.
The Youth Justice Board records individual movements between establishments but does not centrally collate the data in a format which would enable it to provide the information requested. To do that would require a review of each case over the past 12 months, which could not be undertaken without incurring disproportionate costs.
The following table sets out how many young people from London and the South East region have been remanded in, or sentenced to, custody by the courts and subsequently placed by the Youth Justice Board in secure training centres or secure children's homes in the period, 1 April 2008 to 31 March 2009.
Region Secure children’s home Secure training centre Total London 77 293 370 South East 60 125 185 Total 137 418 555
These data have been supplied by the Youth Justice Board from administrative computer systems.