North Lincolnshire youth re-offending cases 'halved' in a year

The number of young people re-offending in North Lincolnshire has halved over the last year, a council has said.

North Lincolnshire Council's youth offending service manager, Sue Sheridan, said the number of re-offenders had dropped from 40 to 20 within the last 12 months.

According to a report by the Youth Justice Board (YJB) , the service has gone from being one of the worst in the country to among the best.

YJB inspectors congratulated the team.

Last year the service was described as "extremely disappointing" because of the poor standards of care.

'Back on track'

North Lincolnshire Council said it had worked "extremely hard" to improve the service.

Ms Sheridan said: "Our public protection arrangements are much, much more robust than they were last year. We've reduced the level of risk that young people present.

"The community policing issues are much more well managed than they were this time a year ago."

Improvements also included a tailored approach to rehabilitation programmes for each young offender.

Youth Justice support worker Kev Heath said: "Every child is different so we looked individually how we can we help that child and we immediately saw better outcomes."

The council said a greater number of young people were engaged in positive community-based activities and getting "back on track" as a result.