Today we provide an update on ongoing work to improve the public availability of justice data for Wales, including the development of interactive dashboards to bring together available data for Wales in one place. This morning, the first of these dashboards – the Youth Justice Interactive Dashboard – was published.

Darllenwch y dudalen hon yn Cymraeg.

Why are we interested in improving the accessibility of justice data about Wales?

The Commission on Justice in Wales, an independent commission appointed by the Welsh Government in December 2017, undertook a review of the justice system in Wales. It published the Justice in Wales for the People of Wales report in October 2019 to set a long term vision for the future of justice in Wales.

Amongst a number of recommendations, the report emphasised the importance of collecting and publishing Wales specific justice data on a sufficient scale to enable disaggregation, with a view to proper evidence-based policy development and as a basis for research.

What have we been doing to improve the availability of Welsh justice data?

Our analysts have reviewed the justice data landscape for Wales and have identified a number of gaps across all aspects of the justice system. We are now discussing our findings with the Ministry of Justice, referring to the Anti-Racist Wales Action Plan, Youth Justice Blueprint and Women’s Justice Blueprint to inform our data priorities.

Existing justice data for Wales can be found in various statistical releases but is often split out across open data tables or geographical tools. Our statisticians have been bringing these various data sets together into Power BI dashboards to create a single set of statistical products for users of Welsh justice data. The youth justice interactive dashboard represents the first of these dashboards planned for release.

What is in the dashboard?

The dashboard brings together the Wales-specific data in the accompanying tables of Youth Justice annual statistics, published by the Youth Justice Board for England and Wales.

There are four main topics areas included at present, outlined below. “Children” in this dashboard refers to people aged 10 to 17.

1. Children who offend – the number and characteristics of children receiving cautions or sentences in Wales
2. Proven Offences – the number and nature of proven offences committed by children in Wales.
3. Outcomes – the number of cautions or sentences given to children in Wales.

Welsh Youth Justice Performance Indicators – a set of performance indicators specific to the Youth Justice system in Wales, including accommodation, education, training and employment (ETE), substance misuse and mental health.

What should be considered when using this dashboard?

The Youth Justice Board for England and Wales publish a Guide to youth justice statistics which provides more detail on youth justice statistics presented in the annual youth justice statistics bulletin (the data source for this dashboard).

The data included on Youth Justice performance indicators relates to the indicators as they were prior to 1 April 2023. New key performance indicators have been designed by the Ministry of Justice in consultation with the Youth Justice Board, front line services, inspectorates and other government departments, and have come into effect from 1 April 2023. More information on these new indicators can be found on the key performance indicators for youth justice services webpage (Youth Justice Board for England and Wales).

What are the future plans for interactive justice dashboards?

The source data for the Youth Justice dashboard is published annually, and it is our intention to update in as timely a manner as possible. We are considering other sources of data relating to Youth Justice to include in future updates.

We have a number of other dashboards in the pipeline, including topics such as courts, tribunals, prisons, crime and legal aid.

We really do welcome feedback to make sure this dashboard and future dashboards meets user needs. If you have any feedback on the youth justice dashboard or there is anything you would like to see us include in future iterations, please get in touch with us at stats.inclusion@gov.wales.