I’m writing this blog during half-term. I’m working from home most of the week as my daughter is revising for her mocks ahead of taking GCSEs. This takes me back to my own efforts at revising and the vast procrastination that involved. Talking of procrastination, I’m currently feeling a smug after-glow as for once I’ve achieved one of my New Year resolutions. I play bass guitar in a band (aptly named ‘The Relics’) and we had our first ever gig at the weekend. After three years of talking about it, and subjecting our families to rehearsals, we finally took the plunge and played at a small pub in Hoxton to a feisty group of friends and family. More on that later.

It was a musical influence that inspired the title of this blog. ‘Rotting on remand’ will be familiar to those Billy Bragg aficionados amongst you. A line from the song really sticks in my mind: “It's a cruel unusual punishment that society demands, innocent till proven guilty, rotting on remand.” It speaks of the injustice and deprivations of an adult on remand in the 1980’s, when the song was written.

The impact of time spent on remand is even more damaging for young people, and this experience is further compounded by disproportionality.  Nationally, there is an overrepresentation of Black and Mixed Heritage children in custody; 51% of children in youth custody were from global majority backgrounds - 24% were Black, 18% Mixed and 9% were from Asian and other backgrounds (in London (2020) this was 87%).

Of those children who spent time on remand, 62% went on to receive a non-custodial sentence, suggesting that there may have been alternatives to remand for this group. The statistics betray the damaging impact of remand on individuals, with 66.1% of children leaving custody reoffending within 12 months of release.

In London, we have the London Accommodation Pathfinder (LAP) to provide courts with an alternative to remanding children into custody. This is a pilot – it’s only available to boys aged 16 and 17 years old charged with certain offences (excluding murder and attempted murder), and initially it was only open to two sub-regions of London. The pilot offers specialist supported accommodation, with a psychologically informed model and wrap-around support.

The provision has been ‘live’ since autumn of 2023. In that time 17 children have been placed – 94% of whom were from Black, Asian, Mixed or Minority White backgrounds. Of the 16 children who have successfully completed their placement at the LAP (typically for six months), three returned to their family, eight moved to other supported accommodation, and one to a children’s home. Only three children went on to be remanded into custody, with one going on to receive a custodial sentence.

During their placement there are positive signs that the children made positive steps in developing more pro-social behaviours and re-engaged in education.  13 children completed at least one AQA qualification, and five participated in work experience. Seven children attended college either during their placement or shortly after leaving. One child who was placed in the LAP said: “I appreciate the LAP service as it gave me a chance to show the judge I can be in the community without getting into more trouble.” Another said, “[I] will always appreciate the LAP as it gave me a second chance.”

I’m not going to pretend this has been easy – as anyone who has been involved in cross-authority commissioning collaborations will probably understand. We’ve learnt a lot from this pilot and encountered the usual challenges, including risk-sharing, managing voids, operational disruptions to name but a few, but we remain committed to explore re-commissioning of the service next year to serve the whole of London. The London Innovation and Improvement Alliance has played a key role in developing and supporting this initiative, which has also benefited from funding and support from the Youth Justice Board.

There is some good news - the overall number of children from London placed in custody has fallen from 156 in August 2023 to 117 in August 2024 (with some of this reduction due to the alternative offered by the introduction of the LAP), but there is clearly much more work to do. The DfE’s Regional Care Co-operatives may offer an opportunity to develop other alternatives to custody for these children. As ADCS we should continue to advocate for greater social justice for boys from Black, Brown and minority backgrounds.

Back in that pub on Saturday night. Once the terror subsided, I had a great time. We did play a Billy Bragg song early in our set, although it wasn’t ‘Rotting on remand’. Instead, we played ‘Accident waiting to happen’, which perhaps was a more fitting choice given what was to follow…