Secure Training Centres: Restraint Techniques

Ms Keeble
To ask the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice what consultations were undertaken on changes to the use of restraint in secure training centres before the laying of the Secure Training Centre (Amendment) Rules 2007 (S.I., 2007, No. 1709), dated 13 June 2007, before Parliament; and what (a) monitoring and (b) impact assessment she plans to undertake of the implementation of the changes.

Bridget Prentice
We consulted the Youth Justice Board and Directors of secure training centres about the proposed change. Wider consultation was not necessary or appropriate, as there is no change of the policy on the use of physical restraint. That policy is set out in section 10 of the Youth Justice Board’s code of practice “Managing Children and Young People's Behaviour in the Secure Estate”.

Monitors appointed by the Youth Justice Board monitor the use of physical restraint in secure training centres and are required to submit to the Board a report of any incident in which physical restraint is used. The Board also collects statistical data on the use of physical restraint across the under-18 secure estate. In April 2007, it introduced a new system of data collection, which will provide more detailed information and allow more accurate comparisons to be made about use of restraint in the three sectors of the estate (young offender institutions, secure training centres and secure children’s homes).

Ms Keeble
To ask the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice how many reviews the Youth Justice Board has undertaken of the use of restraint in secure training centres in the last five years.

Bridget Prentice
The Youth Justice Board has commissioned four reviews relating exclusively to methods of restraint used in secure training centres.

These were:

a review by David Waplington of behaviour management in secure training centres (October 2004);

a review by medical and other experts of the safety of “Physical Control in Care” (PCC) the system of restraint approved for use in secure training centres (May 2005);

an independent review of PCC and behaviour management in secure training centres. Conducted by Anthony Bleetman and Peter Boatman (July 2005);

Safe and Sound, a review of the development of physical control techniques used in secure training centres. Conducted by a forum of Secure Training Centre Directors (August 2006).

In addition, the Youth Justice Board commissioned the National Children’s Bureau to report on use of physical intervention within the juvenile secure estate generally (2003).