Information Sharing
J - Jargon Buster
From September 2005 to September 2008, all local authority services for children and young people, and the wide range of services from other agencies and organisations, will be subject to a joint area review. The review provides a comprehensive report on the outcomes for children and young people in the local area. It incorporates the inspection of youth services and replaces the separate inspections of local education authorities, local authorities' social services, Connexions services, and the provision for students aged 14–19. Normally the JAR is carried out at the same time as the Audit Commission's corporate assessment of the council, and is aligned with the inspection of youth offending teams undertaken by HMI Probation.
Joint commissioning is when two or more agencies work together to commission services for agreed strategic purposes, and usually includes pooling of financial resources. While joint commissioning is not a new concept (or practice), the Children Act 2004 (section 10) for the first time places a duty on local authorities and other key agencies to co-operate to improve the well-being of children and young people; this will involve joint commissioning.
This term is used within the criminal justice system to refer to a person aged 17 or under (or, strictly speaking, to refer to people aged from 10 to 17, because children under the age of 10 are below the age of criminal responsibility). Although it is a common term, the only major use of the word ‘juvenile’ in legislation is in the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, where it was used to refer to people aged from 10 to 16.
Page updated: Friday, December 8, 2006 11:48 AM
