Clause 41 - Report by local authority in
Anti-social Behaviour Bill
3:45 pm
Mr Bob Ainsworth (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Home Office; Coventry North East, Labour)
For 10 and 11-year-old offenders, the choice open to the court is either bail or remand to local authority accommodation. The local authority then has discretion over the placement of the child on remand. That measure allows the court to ask the local authority to report back within seven working days on where children will be placed should they be remanded in local authority care. That report informs the court's decision on whether bail or remand to local authority accommodation is the most appropriate option available to prevent further offending. The measure deals with 10 and 11-year-old persistent offenders, and the local authority must deal quickly with requests for reports. The local authority will be asked to undertake a preliminary investigation of a child's circumstances and tell the court where they would place the child if they were remanded to local authority accommodation. We are not expecting the local authority to produce a full assessment of the child's needs within this period.
We need to strike a balance between exploring the child's circumstances and placement options and avoiding the introduction of unnecessary delays to youth justice proceedings. A maximum period of seven working days strikes a fair balance. We expect the power to be used only for persistent serious 10 and 11-year-old offenders, so we are talking about small numbers of people.