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A new report on youth offending in Wales warns that there are “unacceptable” shortages in secure accommodation for young people in the principality, writes Alex Dobson.

The joint report from the Welsh assembly and the Youth Justice Board - The All Wales Youth Offending Strategy - highlights what it says are a number of concerns about the lack of accommodation, which results in Welsh youngsters being placed in English institutions.

And the report calls for urgent representations to be made to Westminster over the need for funding and the development of custodial facilities in Wales.

The draft document says that there is anecdotal evidence that Welsh young offenders held in English facilities are particularly vulnerable to bullying, and that they face unsatisfactory journeys detained in cells inside vehicles to reach their destinations.

“Children and young people are carried in cellular vehicles, staff ratios are low, staff are untrained in childcare, long delays are involved, children are sometimes detained in transit without comfort breaks, and sometime arrive at custodial facilities after reception had closed and have to be placed in a police cell," it says.

The report says that the staff that work with young offenders also have to spend large amounts of time traveling to visit the young clients. The problem is likely to get worse with the partial withdrawal of the YJB from Ashfield Young Offenders Institution in Bristol where the majority of young Welsh offenders are currently detained.

The YJB, which commissions and buys places at Ashfield, confirmed in February that it would be reducing the current 212 places to just 40 remand places after the privately-run centre failed to improve standards.

Although the Youth Justice Board aims to place young offenders no more than 50 miles from their homes, health and social services minister, Jane Hutt told the Welsh assembly that of the 182 Welsh offenders currently detained, only 42 were housed in Wales.