Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnership update

Report: 12
Date: 27 January 2005
By: Clerk

Summary

This report invites members to discuss and report back from their link member involvement in the last six months, particularly in relation to Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships. The report summarises some of the regular matters discussed at CDRPs in recent months.

A. Recommendation

That members discuss their CDRP involvement and any issues arising from this.

B. Supporting information

1. Members agreed at their Awayday in July 2004 to discuss issues arising from and their involvement with Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships (CDRPs) on a six-monthly basis at an Authority meeting. This report provides a basis for member-led discussion, outlining key themes that have arisen in the last 6 months.

Matters arising at CDRPs

Crime and Disorder Strategies and Audits

2. Members will be aware that each CDRP is currently developing its third crime and disorder strategy. Publication of these is due by the end of March 2005. CDRPs appear on course to achieve this target. Various methods were used to undertake the crime audits that provide the basis for the strategies. Generally, audits have encompassed data input from the range of partners involved, particularly around issues of anti-social behaviour. Many audits resulted in large volumes of data being produced, with the information presented in both summary form and with graphical layouts, lending them towards being used for consultation purposes. The extent and methods of consultation around audits varied, but most boroughs undertook some form of consultation on strategic priorities. The current status is that audits and consultation feedback have been discussed at meetings and submitted to GOL. Typically key issues/emerging priorities that feature include the fear of crime, anti-social behaviour, town centre and night-time economy issues, young people, drugs and alcohol matters, volume crime categories, retail crime and hate crime. Finalised strategies are being circulated for agreement by partners.

Persistent and Prolific Offenders Strategies

3. The Home Office required each CDRP to produce a Persistent and Prolific Offenders Strategy. These aim to identify key adult offenders upon whom partners will jointly focus to challenge and divert them from an offending lifestyle. The catch and convict element of the strategy has been the first strand to be addressed (‘prevent and deter’ and ‘resettle and rehabilitate’ being the other complementary strands). The workload around these strategies has mainly fallen upon the borough command units, as this strand principally involves the policing input. However, partners have collaborated in identifying the initial set of target offenders and joint steering groups have been set up to manage and develop plans for dealing with individuals. Issues have commonly arisen around:

1. the Probation Service’s current capacity to engage with this work;
2. a data-sharing reluctance from the Health Service;
3. the number of offenders that form a manageable list;
4. the extent to which a similar approach is undertaken for targeting under-18s;
5. publicity and human rights issues;
6. duplication between this strategy and other activity e.g. drugs and youth offending work/strategies.

Anti-Social Behaviour Strategies

4. CDRPs have also been active in developing anti-social behaviour strategies. A Home Office one-day count of anti-social behaviour early in 2004 informed partnerships of the extent and cost of anti-social behaviour. It also indicated how many agencies this affected. Strategies have been produced to provide greater co-ordination and to determine approaches covering prevention, enforcement and reporting. The MPA has worked with pan-London partners in developing a London-wide strategy, which is awaiting final publication. Some of the key concerns raised in discussion around strategies are:

1. the impact of anti-social behaviour upon fear of crime;
2. the links with alcohol-fuelled behaviour;
3. youth diversion
4. use of new legislative powers including dispersal orders.

Drugs and alcohol

5. Pilots for Drugs Intervention Programme (formerly the Criminal Justice Intervention Programme) continue. Police stations in boroughs with this status can test persons arrested for drugs and offer restorative justice and treatment where a drug habit may be involved. The tests are confirming links between drugs and crime. One main issue arises from those boroughs that do not have pilot status and so are not able to offer this provision. The second is the impact upon health and treatment services and their capacity to respond to this initiative, particularly in parity with drugs treatment services for non-offenders.

6. Local authorities have been required to produce licensing strategies in the light of new licensing regulations. CDRPs have been consulted upon these particularly with respect to potential implications upon crime and disorder. Boroughs have sought to find the right balance between promoting their town centres and night-time economies with limiting the negative consequences of alcohol misuse. Borough Commanders have been concerned with the impact that a greater flexibility in the new system will have on police resources e.g. shift patterns and hotspot areas. General approval from CDRPs of the strategies has been reached in most boroughs.

CDRP structures

7. Many CDRPs have conducted further reviews of their structures to reflect strategy implementation and improvement plan matters identified early in 2004. This has led to temporary shake-ups and a degree of flux in certain boroughs, others appear more cohesive and purposeful as a result. A Home Office Review of CDRPs is also underway. The biggest factor now influencing CDRPs are Local Area Agreements whereby targets are agreed between the central government and boroughs, including those covering crime and community safety. With regard to structural issues, the mechanics of these agreements place Local Strategic Partnerships (LSPs) and their community strategies at the apex of local partnership working in the next couple of years. This is leading to newly defined links between LSPs and CDRPs and revised memberships of these to reflect where the strategic and executive remits lie. In several instances it has become unclear where the MPA member representation is now most appropriate.

8. The Authority has informed the Cracking Crime Board on work on Black and Minority Ethnic Representation on CDRPs and is committed to influencing CDRPs on this agenda. Through its community engagement work, the MPA is also piloting new inclusive community-led structures for engaging with and holding to account CDRPs.

Safer Neighbourhoods

9. Three Safer Neighbourhood Teams have been deployed in all boroughs. The authority received a report at its meeting on 30 September 2004 on progress of this initiative. Boroughs have identified up to 5 neighbourhoods for further roll-out, funding permitting. Borough Commanders have generally engaged positively with partners on the determination of wards/areas in this new round. There are a number of notable joint initiatives underway, new consultative arrangements and shared benefits being achieved that are reported through progress reports of the initiative. A joint Safer Neighbourhoods Conference was held on 14 January 2005 at City Hall largely to address key issues involving boroughs, namely future funding and common ownership of safer neighbourhoods. The MPA supported this event with the Mayor’s Office, the MPS, the Association of London Government and other pan-London partners. The ‘Building Communities, Beating Crime’ White Paper was discussed by the Authority on 16 December 2004; this paper provides a further drive towards neighbourhood policing and locally-based community engagement capacity, but coverage of this at CDRP meetings has not so far been extensive. However, most CDRPs have received presentations on Safer Neighbourhoods.

Performance

10. As part of their strategies, CDRPs have conducted reviews of their achievements. There are a number of pan-London bodies, including Crime and Disorder Plus and the London Street Crime Reduction Board, being informed by and influencing the work/performance monitoring of CDRPs. Many CDRPs are testing new regular performance management models. The most recent development is likely to be the most influential. This involves local target setting linked with central government targets through Local Area Agreements. Negotiations have taken place in all boroughs on local policing plan targets to which the MPA has, in many instances, been invited. Partnerships have been encouraged to share ownership of these targets in their strategies through this process. The use of comparative data using iQuanta information is also being promoted. One issue of interest to the MPA is how well the system and basis of local targets fits with the London-wide policing plan targets. The new system brings with it a range of issues for consideration by CDRPs and the MPA, which are still unfolding. Members may wish for this to be considered specifically at a meeting of the Planning, Performance and Review Committee.

Funding

11. The Basic Command Unit Fund and Building Safer Communities Fund represent the main building blocks of CDRP funding. The MPA is the only partner to consistently contribute funding to all partnerships in addition to central government funds and local authority/police inputs. Many of the local contributions remain in-kind, although for many of the joint processes such as the audits, other partners have supported these with funding. The forthcoming year will see a new funding regime introduced by the Home Office which puts together the majority of central funding streams into a Safer and Stronger Communities Fund. In 2006/07, this funding stream will go to the LSP rather than CDRPs. The Basic Command Unit Fund awarded to each BCU remains unchanged this year but no has guarantees of remaining in the same form in future years.

MPA Initiatives

12. In the forthcoming 6 months, the following activities are scheduled:

1. The new phase of the Chair’s borough visits will take place. Selected boroughs have agreed dates.
2. The MPA CDRP team are considering/developing further training an induction for members, a good practice guide, and an event for CDRPs to showcase their good practice.
3. Members will need to sign off Crime and Disorder Strategies in their link boroughs.
4. Target setting will continue.
5. The MPA and MPS will be working on a joint project to review Borough Command Unit input into partnership working.

C. Equality and diversity implications

The MPA, is currently developing a community engagement strategy. This will actively consider issues of CDRP accessibility to, representation of and engagement with the MPA’s equality priority groups. The MPA is also actively participating in the work of the London Race Hate Crime Forum which is engaging with CDRPs to explore, test and address issues specific to CDRP work on race hate and other hate crime. It is hoped that these areas of work will increasingly inform and influence the work of CDRPs with respect to race and equality matters. There is still an uncertainty about how the Race Relations Act as amended in 2000 applies within a partnership context and with respect to partnership policies; the MPA is participating in the BME Cracking Crime Board, which will progress this discussion.

D. Financial implications

None specific arising from the report. Members will be kept informed of the changes to CDRP funding arrangements and their implications and impacts, as these emerge, through briefing papers and advice from their Partnership Support Officers

E. Background papers

None

F. Contact details

Report author: Jude Sequeira, Partnerships Officer

For more information contact:

MPA general: 020 7202 0202
Media enquiries: 020 7202 0217/18

Send an e-mail linking to this page

Feedback