Enforcement of Statutory Court Orders

1. Referral Orders, Youth Rehabilitation Orders

1. Young people must sign the 'standards expected' at the start of every Court Order;
2. All appointments should be arranged at a time when they do not conflict with school, work or religious observations;
3. Young People subject to Referral Orders and are required to report as determined by the Scaled Approach Model;
4. Contact with young people subject to Reparation requirements will be determined by the nature of the work to be undertaken however it MUST be specified at the start of the Order;
5. Young people subject to a Youth Rehabilitation Order are required to report to the YOS as determined by the scaled approach. The reporting requirements in line with the scaled approach can only be varied in agreement with a Manager;
6. The Scaled Approach model as set out in the table below relates to the following statutory youth justice orders:
   • YRO with a supervision requirement and other requirements where appropriate and as part of the intervention plan;
   • Referral Orders;
   • Community element of Detention and Training Orders (DTOs).

2. Failure to Comply

Young people who fail to attend an appointment are required to provide evidence of their inability to attend. This includes a doctor's note, letter from employer etc. Failure to provide this or to make any contact results in the Case Manager following the missed appointment up within 1 working day by contacting the young person to establish a reason for non compliance. This must be recorded on CVYJ as '24 hour follow up'. Where there is no valid reason for non attendance this must be recorded as an 'Incident of failure to comply' and be followed up with an Initial Warning letter (template found in YOS Templates) A further failure to comply results in a Final Warning Letter (again, template found in YOS Templates) being issued to the young person with a reminder that one further failure to comply will result in the young person returning to Court.

1. As soon as it becomes evident that compliance is problematic consideration should be given to convening a Compliance Panel which should be arranged as soon as possible (refer to Compliance Review Policy);
2. However, notwithstanding the outcome of any compliance panel, any further failure to comply will result in breach proceedings being instigated and the young person must be sent a Notification of Breach letter informing them that they are to be returned to Court. The letter should provide them with the date of the Court appearance and notify them that they will receive a Summons in due course;
3. All warning letters must be issued within one working day of the incident of failure to comply being established (National Standard);
4. In a YRO case, a warning is required if the supervising officer finds there is a failure to comply without reasonable excuse. If, following a further second warning within the 12 month 'warned period,' there is then a third failure to comply without reasonable excuse, the officer must refer the case to court for breach proceedings, although Youth Offending Service will have additional discretion in exceptional circumstances following a third failure to comply. The officer in discussion with a manager also has the discretion to refer the case to court at an earlier warning stage.

For all Orders, Breach Proceedings must be instigated as soon as possible following the last failure to comply and listed as quickly as possible in Court. You should ensure that the young person has at least 7 days warning of the Court listing and attempt to list the case within 10 days of the breach being instigated (local standard).

Where appropriate, young people should continue to report in the period between instigation of breach and the Court appearance, and therefore, appointments should be offered as before.

All enforcement actions must be recorded promptly on CVYJ, and copies of Warning Letters and any evidence of acceptable reasons for failure to comply must be retained on the paper file.