"...and then of course the other barrier we have as i have already mentioned is the provision of placements beyond Gwynedd and Wales for children and young people who have intensive needs need specialist placements in the same manner as well. We are also concerned about the language needs of young offenders who receive a custodial sentence. When I was writing up this report we didn't have any single person who needed a custodial sentence in Gwynedd for several years but unfortunately that has changed in the past week and we have one young person now who has received a custodial sentence for very serious offences and of course has been placed in prison in england. So the youth justice service and his social workers now ensure he has access to resources through the medium of Welsh and they'll work with the prison to ensure that happens. The prison where he's been placed or where he has been imprisoned is one that encourages the use and the use of welsh medium resources for prisoners from Wales who are Welsh with first language and of course need translations through the medium of Welsh. This matter has been included on our departmental risk register because of the fact we feel that young people from Gwynedd are placed under a disadvantage in terms of their choice and use of their first language in the prison..."
This was a hybrid meeting held over Zoom which Gwynedd council do not upload to their website. Minutes will be available, but as many Councillors are now discovering the minutes are not always accurate.
The Director of Gwynedd SS, Dilwyn Owen, would have known of this case but in his just published Annual Report states -
Implementing the 2022/23 Youth Justice Plan...
The rates of new offenders and reoffending rates are lower than regional and national comparisons and no young person from Gwynedd has been remanded since 2020.
https://democracy.gwynedd.llyw.cymru//documents/s38361/Item%208%20-%20Appendix.pdf
He also states -
Using our influence is important. The former director was the national and regional lead on More Than Just Words, which enabled substantial progress in the provision nation-wide. Another example is that we refused to welcome Youth Justice inspectors as they were unable to guarantee bilingual inspectors, and they agreed to delay their inspection until this was possible.
This report along with the annual complaint handling reports are to be scrutinised by the Care Scrutiny Committee later this year.This will be the first time the SS complaints handling reports have come before the Care Scrutiny Committee since the senior complaints officer for the children and families department was called out for misleading the Committee in 2019.
This also means that all through the Covid pandemic no SS complaints report went through a scrutiny committee, instead going straight to Cabinet for 'scrutiny'.
One of the jobs of the scrutiny committees is to hold cabinet members to account for their departments actions. In the past some Councillors even went to the press to complain of similar issues -
Gwynedd councillors say they were ‘shut out’ of decision-making during lockdown
https://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/gwynedd-councillors-say-were-shut-18705757
The former director's incumbency was littered with maladministration, managers who marked their own homework and wrote reports in spite of the evidence. The data is useless and recommendations for improvement from regulators unfinished. Officers have misled councillors and even the Ombudsman for Wales - repeatedly.
Mr Owen also raises concerns that some recent risks have not been managed by the Mental Health Service and worries for the future -
The Children’s Referrals Team received over 7,000 referrals this year
- an increase of around 2,500 since the pre-COVID-19 period. The Mental
Health Service saw a similar increase and I know that due to the
excellent work of our teams the risks was managed in the vast majority
of cases.
We take pride in this work, whilst also knowing that
dealing with the increace in referrals is not sustainable, and I am
concerned about the pressures placed on our workforce.
