Young offender institutions, secure training centres and local authority secure children’s homes could be brought "under one roof" with common standards in a shake-up of youth custody, according to government proposals leaked to Community Care, writes Maria Ahmed.

The plans are contained in the Sentencing and Youth Justice Bill, which the Home Office has confirmed is likely to be published in October.

The announcement has quashed fears that youth justice legislation announced last year, had been abandoned after it was not mentioned in the Queen’s Speech in May.

The bill is likely to include proposals to establish intensive supervision and surveillance orders as an alternative to custodial sentences, to extend youth offending teams’ functions, introduce generic youth community orders and make the prevention of reoffending the primary purpose of sentencing for young people.

Adult sentencing will also be contained in the bill, according to the leaked proposals, which could fuel growing speculation over the future of the Management of Offenders and Sentencing Bill announced in the Queen’s Speech this year.

Youth justice campaigners said they hoped the proposals to create common standards across YOIs, STCs and Laschs would drive up the quality of care for young offenders.

Pauline Batstone, chair of the Association of Youth Offending Team Managers, said the proposals would be "a chance to go back to the drawing board".

But she warned that implementing common standards could increase costs unless they covered the "most basic" functions, and predicted Laschs could need additional standards as they held the most vulnerable young people.

Batstone was also sceptical about whether the courts would have the confidence to refocus legislation to make the prevention of reoffending the primary purpose of sentencing for young people.

She said: "Will magistrates be prepared to take the flak which may come from this, where the public and media do not perceive a sentence based on this principle to be punitive enough?"

Roy Walker, manager of the Sutton Place secure home in Hull, said the standard and quality of care in Laschs should form the basis of the common standards and not those of YOIs and STCs.

The Youth Justice Board said it would not comment on the contents of the bill before it was published.