RYOGENS (Reducing Youth Offending Generic National Solution)

Protecting vulnerable children and young people at risk of becoming involved in crime
RYOGENS is an online e-government project contributing to the national strategy for local government. It is an initiative to help protect vulnerable children and young people from becoming involved in crime and to reduce youth crime and anti-social behaviour. Sponsored by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM), it is being developed by Warwickshire, Lewisham and Tower Hamlets in collaboration with Deloittes, with the technical solutions being provided by Esprit. 

The solution will consist of a process for co-ordinating the safe gathering, sharing and analysis of personal information about children and young people. This process will alert agencies so that they can target speedy, effective actions. It is intended for use by:

• care professionals, practitioners and other members of the core contributing agencie, directly or thorugh another member of the agency;
• members of other agencies and services, indirectly, doing through one of the core agencies or the RYOGENS Management Function (RMF).

The core contributing agencies for the project are Education, Health, Police, Probation, Social Services and the Youth Offending Team (YOT). Anti-social Behaviour units will also be included. 

The solution:

• develops ways for local authority and youth justice agencies to work more effectively together through the safe sharing of case information, in order to protect vulnerable children and reduce youth offending
• be a vehicle for helping to develop and make a success of LocalGovernment Preventative strategies as required by the Department for Education and Skills' Children and Young Person's Unit
• contribute to the development of a successful model or models for local IRT (Identification, Referral and Tracking) of vulnerable children and young people.

Benefits include:

• Increases information sharing (and trust) between agencies and encourages them to work together to intervene before vulnerable children reach crisis point thus helping to reduce crime.
• Provides a building block for meeting the challenges presented by the Youth Justice Board and the wider information sharing and children’s agendas.
• Reinforces clear cross-agency lines of accountability and tracks cases through to outcomes, helping ensure children do not slip through the net.
• Provides greater knowledge of need (and any resource constraints) locally.
• Includes a permissions model to determine what information different users can access and assists practitioners to establish the firm legal basis for sharing information.
• Includes a substantial investment in security.
• Is cost effective.
• Configurable; enabling the system to be adapted in the light of local circumstances and future legislation.
• Is externally hosted meaning local IT departments do not need to be involved.

More information about RYOGENS is available from their website www.ryogens.org.uk
More information about the local e-government National Projects is available at the website www.localegov.gov.uk