Update on MPS response to the recommendations of the MPA Youth Scrutiny 2007/08

Report: 7
Date: 21 May 2009
By: T/AC Territorial Policing on behalf of the Commissioner

Summary

In November 2008 the MPS reported progress against the 25 police-specific recommendations contained in the MPA Youth Scrutiny. The report documented both current activity and developmental work.
This report provides an update on progress, and focuses on ten key recommendations.

Also included is an outline of progress on the outcomes of the review of the MPS Youth Strategy conducted by the MPS between December 2008 and February 2009.

A. Recommendation

That

1. members note the MPS the continuing work by the MPS in response to the MPA Youth Scrutiny.
2. That members note the planned next steps following the MPS Youth Strategy Review.

B. Supporting information

1. The MPA Youth Scrutiny report was discussed at Full Authority on 26 June 2008 and a full update on the MPS response was provided by the Chair of the MPS Youth Strategy Board, T/AC Territorial Policing on 6 November 2008. In total there were 53 recommendations arising out of the Scrutiny, with 30 being wholly or at least in part, directed towards the MPS. These are attached at Appendix 1.

2. This report builds on the themes of developing work previously identified, and also seeks to provide information on some of the outcomes of the Youth Strategy review conducted between December 2008 and February 2009.

3. Of the 30 recommendations directed towards the MPS, 20 continue to be ongoing activities as previously reported in November 2008. Examples of these are developing Safer Schools Partnerships; the development of training for Safer Neighbourhood Panel Chairs; increased visibility of Safer Transport Teams (Operation Tyrol has been subject of a separate report to MPA); and improving reporting mechanisms for young people such as through Operation Sharp.

4. ‘To deliver the outcomes within the Youth Strategy and develop further partnership and third sector initiatives’ is a key activity within the 2009 – 2010 Policing Plan. It supports the corporate objective of ‘reducing serious youth violence and protecting young people’.

5. For the purpose of this report, we will focus on 10 recommendations where significant challenge or progress has been noted.

Recommendation 3: Safer Schools Officers and Safer Neighbourhoods Teams should develop links with providers of youth provision to be able to signpost young people to positive activities.

6. Safer Neighbourhood Teams are continuously updating the Ward Profiles that detail facilities and key contacts on their ward. These documents provide a ready reference for signposting young people toward local youth provision. The Voluntary Police Cadets (VPC) and the development of Project You are now profiled at local levels, and leading towards the VPC parade on 14 June 2009 with a presentation of Colours, and an award event planned for the autumn. There are now some 1350 police cadets and the target is to reach 4000 by the time of the 2012 Olympics.

7. Project YOU is a partnership between uniformed youth organisations (The Voluntary Police Cadets, Army Cadets Force, Air Cadet, Sea Cadets, Scouts, Girl Guides, St John’s Ambulances, Boys Brigade ,and the Prince’s Trust) established to ensure young people can participate in positive activities, and become good citizens. Opportunities for engagement with these groups are coordinated at the Peel Centre office for Foundation Training, where best practice links with local organisations at borough level are coordinated with the potential to tap into some 76,000 youth members.

Recommendation 9: Recognising the importance of early intervention, the MPS Youth Strategy Board should consider how information collected via Merlin could be used to refer young people at risk to other relevant statutory service providers.

8. Item 2 of Notices 37/08 dated 10 September 2008 addressed this issue through a Standard Operating procedure. These included use of the Pre-Assessment Checklist (PAC). The PAC is the method for recording incidents where a child or young person comes to the notice of police and there are concerns about their well being or safety. This allows the raising of concern within the MPS or with partner agencies about a child failing to achieve the five key outcomes. Within the MPS the PAC will be recorded directly on to MERLIN.

9. MERLIN Come To Notice (CTN) forms have been superseded by the PAC to capture concerns where the five key outcomes are not being met. The PAC is recognised nationally as the form used by professionals to raise concerns about a child/young person.

10. Police staff and members of the extended police family who are not authorized to use MERLIN, must raise concerns about the well-being or safety of a child to a police officer or PCSO so that the concerns can be recorded onto MERLIN.

11. All instances of a child or young person who comes to the attention of a police officer, or front line police staff member, where it is believed there are concerns about the child's well being or safety, must be recorded onto a MERLIN PAC form, as soon as reasonably practicable and within that tour of duty.

12. Supervisors have a responsibility to ensure that staff have taken all necessary steps to ensure that a child is not at risk of immediate significant harm. The MERLIN PAC must be assessed for the appropriateness of any actions taken at the time and ensure they are recorded. The supervisor must ensure that any further action that is required is carried out and fully recorded on the circumstances page.

13. The completed PAC will be automatically routed to the Borough Public Protection desk for the area where the child lives.

Recommendation 10: In questioning young people who have been coerced into crime, MPS officers and the Criminal Justice Service should take into account the causes and context of the offending behaviour in order to provide measured responses.

Recommendation 11: Metropolitan Police Service, the London Criminal Justice Board and the Youth Justice Board should expand and develop current interventions for young people at risk of offending behaviour in order also to support those young people who are at risk of victimisation.

14. Four London Boroughs: Lewisham, Greenwich, Havering and Waltham Forest took part in pilots to develop the standard operating procedure for Youth Safety Assessment Tool (YSAT). The outcome is a process for identifying young people at risk of becoming a victim or an offender through the use of a matrix to identify risk factors. The standard operating procedure (SOP) is a framework that sets out how this process works and has key ingredients such as partnership data being shared, joint risk management and tasking to ensure the most appropriate intervention for the individual. The document is principally for police but could be shared with partner and community agencies. The draft is currently out for consultation prior to publication. A rollout programme will then be required for the MPS, for either selected boroughs or pan-London.

15. The expansion of Project You will encompass all Boroughs by the time of the formal launch in June. There are now 1350 young people as members within the Voluntary Police Cadets, and they will be presented with ‘colours’ at a parade to held also in June. The various sporting activities such as Met Track, Kickz, Street Chance (Cricket) are being expanded and added to with Fishing and Rowing, the latter having an adaptive capability to provide for disabled young people.

Recommendation 19: In order to achieve a reduction in the number of young people carrying weapons, the MPS Youth Strategy Board should in addition to Operation Blunt and other short term measures understand and address the causes of why young people carry weapons - including fear of crime - whilst continuing to develop and promote anti-weapon messages.

16 The MPS has conducted a review of Operation Blunt 2 that included young people's perceptions as part of the results analysis, therefore going beyond a simple review of tactics. We have commissioned closer analysis of young respondents (under 21s) in our corporate Public Attitude Survey (PAS) to better understand their worry about crime and confidence in policing, and are currently researching whether to extend the PAS to a younger demographic. In 2007/08, the MPS produced the Gangs, Knives and Wasted Lives report into youth homicide that provided an understanding of the drivers of gang membership, weapons carriage, and precursor events. The MPS, through the Strategy, Research and Analysis Unit, is actively scanning and learning from academic work underway across the UK. As an example, John Pitts is visiting the MPS to give a seminar on his report Reluctant Gangsters (a study of young offenders and victims in Waltham Forest). At a local level, direct feedback from young people themselves for example via Safer Schools and Neighbourhood Panels, informs the problem solving and deployment activities.

Recommendation 21: The MPS should develop the role of engagement and prevention in taking forward the critical performance area of reducing young people’s involvement in serious violence.

17. The MPS is positively engaged with London Councils Serious Youth Violence Board in the development of a framework for local areas. The Strategy and Improvement Research and Analysis Unit is also continuously studying academic and external work, and the Met Intelligence Bureau has produced a Serious Youth Violence Profile to broaden our understanding of where and how engagement and prevention can be directed.

18. An external evaluation is being carried out by Tribal Consulting of selected strategy activities. The aims of this work are to identify improvement actions needed to close any gaps between activity outcomes and value for money in supporting the strategy success measures, and to identify areas of overlap or duplication where promotion of best practice may be required. The work includes examination of governance processes such as budget and performance management. It is anticipated that a full report will be made to the MPS Youth Strategy Board by October 2009.

19. A Youth Strategy KIN (Key Individual Network) is being developed which will ensure that young people are represented in the engagement and ownership of the development of the Strategy activities thereby improving their confidence in police. Police will gain a greater understanding of the causes and symptoms of young peoples’ potential involvement in crime, and make more informed decisions around problem solving that reduces victimisation and offending rates.

20. The MPS Youth Strategy has brought in a new approach to preventing serious youth violence through funding a co-ordinated programme of universal, targeted and specialist voluntary sector and MPS led youth engagement and diversion programmes. The MPS has set out and delivered a new and effective approach to this work which has received wide spread support and put us in a leading position within the police and other services nationally. As this happened there have been major changes in the ACPO arrangements. ACPO has established a new business area for Children and Young People.

21. The MPS Youth Strategy and the Serious Youth Violence Prevention Plan set out a funding programme in 2008/9 with the voluntary sector and £4M one-off funding was allocated to a tasking process and a prevention plan to reduce serious youth violence. This was agreed by the MPA Finance Committee on the 17th of July 2008, and ratified by Full Authority. This set out an innovative funding programme with proven successful MPS and the voluntary sector youth engagement programmes such as the Kickz Football Project, Met-Track, the Prince’s Trust’s Team and xl Programmes, and the Street Pastors Scheme delivered by the Ascension Trust. To ensure that this one-off programme is enhanced, and that there are permanent resources in place to deliver this innovative programme continued investment will cost £5.2Mon an ongoing basis, and a bid will be included by TP within the MPS business planning process for 2010-13. It includes:

• the cost of restructuring the Safer Neighbourhoods Youth Team, with additional posts, to deliver these new areas of work.
• the costs of continuing and enhancing enforcement activity to maintain the current downward trend in serious youth violence.
• the cost of support for improved co-ordination in planning and delivering enforcement through contributions from a range of MPS OCUs, and external enforcement agencies, and
• the necessary operational support for the existing TP Crime Squad as it operates at to support BOCU responses to serious youth violence.

Provision for these initiatives was not approved as part of the 2009-12 budget process and TP will be reviewing its budget allocations for 2009/10 to try and identify where £2.7m of funding could be found to fund the non-staffing elements of the areas identified above.

Recommendation 24: MPS should consider how young people and youth organisations could provide input into initial police probation training and ongoing training for officers.

22. Currently all police students take part in a day-long Community Contributor session. This is a series of interactive sessions with members of diverse communities that always include some younger members of the public. During these sessions facilitated by an instructor, personal experiences of police contact are discussed. These sessions engage probationers in wide ranging discussions on policing issues including stop and search procedures and stop and account, and how to engender positive images of young people with police.

23. These Community Contributor sessions are currently under review, with a view to including them in a new project "Key Encounter”. This has been piloted at Havering for roll out to all training sites. It involves the use of non-police premises, and role players from young groups in society to improve the quality of police interactions with the public. We have begun by running a Key Encounter workshop around Stop and Search. This theme is likely to be adapted across all MPS training sites using local groups. All training sites regularly have young people on work experience placement.

24. Other recent examples of work involving young people across MPS training sites are:

• Key Encounter session using young people from a Westminster college.
• Use of high school students to form a jury in a mock court exercise using Southwark Crown Court
• Westminster Site: Each course runs a session with a group of people with learning difficulties, including a young group.
• "Voyage" project - South London MBPA project focusing on 16-20 year olds in stop and search workshops.
• Exercise with Croydon College using students in stop and search training.
• Hendon site working with "Kid Cop" project in Haringey borough. 12-13 year olds role-play police and suspects in a knife incident that ends up in an arrest in a custody suite.
• Annual event at Hendon with students from Barnet College taking part in role play scenarios.

25. Project YOU is a partnership between uniformed youth organisations (The Voluntary Police Cadets, Army Cadets Force, Air Cadet, Sea Cadets, Scouts, Girl Guides, St John’s Ambulances, Boys Brigade,and the Prince’s Trust) established to ensure young people can participate in positive activities, and become good citizens. Opportunities for engagement with these groups are coordinated at the Peel Centre office for Foundation Training, where best practice links with local organisations at borough level are coordinated with the potential to tap into some 76,000 youth members.

Recommendation 28: The MPS Youth Strategy Board should ensure that all MPS officers and staff are familiar with the corporate MPS messages regarding young people.

26. The Corporate News site on the MPS Aware system provides opportunities for promoting corporate messages and is regularly used for this purpose. Examples include:

Met-Track youth engagement scheme - 01 Apr 09 - The Met is launching a brand new phase of its hugely successful youth engagement programme 'Met-Track' in Sidcup this morning, Wednesday 1 April.
Scheme Director, Superintendent John Powell will be joined by Mayor of London Mr. Boris Johnson at Sidcup Rugby Club as the scheme branches out from its track and field origins to offer a unique menu of sporting activities, delivered by members of British International athletic teams.

Youth Summit Acton Courthouse - 30 Jan 09 - This event was a true multi-agency activity designed to inform and motivate young people to stay out of trouble with the law.

27. Children from four Ealing high schools attended half-day sessions at Acton Youth Court. There they followed the fictitious case of Damien Blane a 16-year-old boy accused of robbery. They witnessed his interview at the police station, the CPS giving charging advice and when he was charged in the custody suite. Damien stood in the dock and the CPS presented the case for the prosecution. The victim gave evidence via a video link. Defence lawyers represented him. The bench, which included school pupils, then decided upon his guilt and punishment. The children heard from both boys’ mothers about how they had been affected. They then had a tour of the court cells, spoke to the gaolers and Serco showed how tags worked and were put on.

28. The Youth Strategy Communication Plan is being enhanced to ensure the standardisation of corporate messages both for internal and external consumption, and will ensure clarity and accuracy of content. The TP Safer Neighbourhoods Unit site on the MPS Intranet is continuously updated by dedicated staff with the latest good news stories, advertising campaigns, and other information such as performance, and regularly references neighbourhood youth issues.

Category 5: The role of non-police agencies in crime prevention

Recommendation 39: MPS officers working with child victims of rape and sexual exploitation should ensure that young people are signposted to specialist agencies to prevent further victimisation.

Recommendation 40: In regards to young people who are at risk of further victimisation, MPS officers should ensure that information collated via Merlin is shared with relevant partner agencies.

29. Item 2 of Notices 39/08 of 24 September 2008 refers to the Standard Operating Procedure for the Investigation of Child Abuse. It specifically details that all Merlin PACs sent to SCD5 the Child Abuse Investigation Command must be e-mailed to local authorities unless the PAC does not reach the Merlin threshold. It also details processes under the Children Act and general instructions relating to police involvement including Working Together which provides advice and guidance on dealing with child protection cases to all professionals involved in the welfare and protection of children. It sets out clear expectations about the ways in which professionals should work together in the interests of children's safety. Similarly The Common Assessment Framework(2006) sets out guidance and expectations relating to all Children Act assessments of children and their families, including child protection cases and child in need cases.

30. Section 47 of The Children Act 1989 provides a statutory duty for Local Authority children's social care to investigate where there is reasonable cause to suspect that a child is suffering, or is likely to suffer significant harm, and that child lives or is found in that area. Any Local Authority carrying out such investigations may call upon other Local Authorities, Education Authorities, Health Authorities and the police for assistance, and it is the duty of those to assist unless it would be unreasonable in the circumstances. It is this piece of legislation that creates the mandate for participation and information sharing by all agencies in a child protection enquiry.

31. The inter-agency network is also bound to operate within an additional threshold where significant harm may not be apparent. This is the 'Child in Need' threshold set out under section 17 Children Act 1989, which demands some form of assessment into the needs of children and their families as well as the probable provision of services by appropriate agencies. In these cases police Child Abuse Investigation Teams (CAITs) have a contribution to make by way of information sharing.

Brief update on progress with the MPS Youth Strategy review and planned next steps

32. Progress with the MPS Youth Strategy review and planned next steps include the implementation of the review Action Plan, much of which is concerned with governance structures. These will provide the MPS Youth Strategy Board with a clear and auditable framework for taking the strategy activities forward.

33. The development of the Youth Engagement strand plan is being linked with the strategy Communication plan and a review of the Equality Impact Assessment, and all three are being taken forward together. An immediate action is to make the MPS Youth Strategy more widely available.

34. A key development is that an independent MPS Youth Strategy KIN is built up and used for the purposes of consultation before, during, and after activities are implemented. Key membership of this will be young people themselves, and inclusion of third sector representation. The MPS Youth Strategy KIN will bridge the gap between the corporate pan-London view, and the more local.

C. Race and equality impact

There are positive equality impacts on young people noted in the existing Equality Impact Assessment (EIA) of the MPS Youth Strategy. The MPS Youth Strategy Board will oversee work towards an updated EIA as one of the specific agreed recommendations from the strategy review, and is anticipated by October 2009.

D. Financial implications

1. As stated in para 20, a bid for funding of £5.2m by TP will be included in the MPS business planning process for 2010-13 to continue prevention and enforcement programmes. These bids will need to be considered against other priorities identified across the Service and the requirement to make significant savings as part of the 2010-13 budget process.

2. Provision for the initiatives outlined in paragraph 20 were not approved as part of the 2009-12 budget process. A review of the TP budget for 2009/10 will also be undertaken to try and identify where resources might be found to continue with both the prevention and enforcement strands identified in the paper.

3. The £4m Youth prevention fund created in 2008/09 has not been fully spent (£920k was spent in 2008/09) and the balance will be carried over to 2009/10, to continue with the projects identified and some possible realignment of funding to meet any new challenges.

E. Background papers

• MPA Youth Scrutiny Report

F. Contact details

Report author(s): Alastair Reid. Programme Manager, Youth Strategy, MPS

For information contact:

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

Appendix 1

MPA Youth Scrutiny: Recommendations

Chapter 1 - Young people as citizens

Recommendation for Local Authorities

Recommendation 1: Local Authorities should:

1. involve young people in devising services to reduce and prevent crime;
2. ensure that workers supporting young people and young people themselves are provided with relevant training and support so that they can contribute effectively;
3. make use of intergenerational projects that bring young people together with adults in positive interactions.

Recommendations for the Metropolitan Police Service

Recommendation 2: In taking forward the Safer Neighbourhoods young people’s priority, Safer Neighbourhoods Teams should:

1. use Safer Neighbourhoods Panels and Young People’s Panels to develop positive interactions between adults and young people;
2. ensure young people’s priorities inform the local priority-setting process;
3. ensure that all Safer Neighbourhoods Panel priorities are informed by accurate data on youth crime and do not unintentionally criminalise young people.

Recommendation 3: Safer Schools Officers and Safer Neighbourhoods Teams should develop links with providers of youth provision to be able to signpost young people to positive activities.

Recommendations for the Metropolitan Police Authority

Recommendation 4: Via the MPA borough link members the MPA should ensure that the Community Police Engagement Groups, which it funds, actively engage young people in their activities.

Recommendation 5: The MPA should mainstream the engagement and participation of young people throughout its work.

Chapter 2 - Young people as victims and witnesses of crime

Recommendations for the Metropolitan Police Service

Recommendation 6: The MPS should increase the visible police presence in areas surrounding schools and colleges at the end of the school and college day.

Recommendation 7: The MPS should increase the visibility of Safer Transport Teams at busy transport hubs and at identified crime hot spots on transport networks, in particular those that are used by large numbers of young people.

Recommendation 8: In partnership with relevant agencies the MPS should improve reporting mechanisms for young people. This should include:

1. developing and promoting a range of young-people-specific reporting mechanisms;
2. considering how Safer Neighbourhoods Teams and Safer Schools Officers can receive crime reports and information directly from young people;
3. carrying out a specific audit to identify good and promising practice concerning youth friendly reporting mechanisms and ensuring that examples of good practice are shared corporately and with relevant agencies.

Recommendation 9: Recognising the importance of early intervention, the MPS Youth Strategy Board should consider how information collected via Merlin could be used to refer young people at risk to other relevant statutory service providers.

Recommendations for the Metropolitan Police Service, the London Criminal Justice Board and the Youth Justice Board

Recommendation 10: In questioning young people who have been coerced into crime, MPS officers and the Criminal Justice Service should take into account the causes and context of the offending behaviour in order to provide measured responses.

Recommendation 11: Metropolitan Police Service, the London Criminal Justice Board and the Youth Justice Board should expand and develop current interventions for young people at risk of offending behaviour in order also to support those young people who are at risk of victimisation.

Recommendation for London Victim Support

Recommendation 12: London Victim Support should develop and promote youth-specific victim support services in every London borough.

Recommendations for Local Authorities

Recommendation 13: Recognising that early intervention approaches are cost effective in the long term, statutory service providers should consider how current resources could be reallocated to focus on early intervention projects.

Recommendations for the Department for Children, Families, and Schools and Department of Health

Recommendation 14: The Department for Children, Families, and Schools and Department for Health should research national and international early intervention programmes to assess what good practice exists and then disseminate this.

Chapter 3 - Young people as perpetrators of crime

Recommendations for Local Authorities

Recommendation 15: Encourage and fund detached youth work, recognising that:

1. building positive, life-changing relationships with socially excluded young people in their terms and on their turf is time-intensive and requires sustained input; and,
2. detached youth workers, such as Camden Youth Disorder Engagement Team, can provide a reactive and beneficial response to youth disorder, as they are able to signpost the young people at hand to diversionary projects and relevant service providers.

Recommendations for Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships

Recommendation 16: Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships within each London borough should agree a uniform approach to identifying young people at risk in order to agree the allocation of resource and service provision.

Recommendation 17: As part of their strategic assessment process, Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships should utilise MPS data on serious youth violence in order to ensure that resources are appropriately focused.

Recommendations for the Metropolitan Police Service

Recommendation 18: The MPS Youth Strategy Board should disseminate the corporate MPS definition for the term ‘gang’. This definition should be understood corporately and communicated consistently.

Recommendation 19: In order to achieve a reduction in the number of young people carrying weapons, the MPS Youth Strategy Board should in addition to Operation Blunt and other short term measures understand and address the causes of why young people carry weapons - including fear of crime - whilst continuing to develop and promote anti-weapon messages.

Recommendation 20: The MPS Youth Strategy Board should acknowledge that young people in gangs are at risk both of further offending and of victimisation and consequently MPS interventions should take this into account.

Recommendation 21: The MPS should develop the role of engagement and prevention in taking forward the critical performance area of reducing young people’s involvement in serious violence.

Recommendation for the London Criminal Justice Board

Recommendation 22: The London Criminal Justice Board should recognise the concerns young people have regarding the Criminal Justice System and provide youth-friendly information on youth justice and tackle the myths that some young people have of custodial and community sentencing.

Recommendation for the Department for Children, Schools and Families

Recommendation 23: It is evident that laws relating to alcohol and drug use and abuse confuse young people and therefore existing and upcoming awareness campaigns should seek to address this confusion.

Chapter 4  - Young people and the police

Recommendations for the Metropolitan Police Service

Recommendation 24: MPS should consider how young people and youth organisations could provide input into initial police probation training and ongoing training for officers.

Recommendation 25: As part of Safer Neighbourhoods Team’s young people’s priority:

1. officers should engage with youth workers in their wards and use this as a hook to develop positive relationships with young people;
2. where possible officers should be encouraged to take part in local diversionary and prevention programmes with young people, thereby allowing officers to develop positive relationships with young people.

Recommendation 26: The Central Safer Neighbourhoods team should corporately share examples of positive engagement of young people by particular Safer Neighbourhoods Teams with all Safer Neighbourhoods Teams.

Recommendation 27: Safer Neighbourhoods Teams and Safer Schools Officers should engage and participate in extended school programmes.

Recommendation 28: The MPS Youth Strategy Board should ensure that all MPS officers and staff are familiar with the corporate MPS messages regarding young people.

Recommendation 29: MPS officers should follow relevant Standard Operating Procedures and ensure that they display courtesy and consideration when stopping and searching young people.

Recommendation 30: The MPS should provide clear information to young people on police tactics and operations that are taking place in specific areas or spaces used by them, for example: the introduction of knife arches or the implementation of a Dispersal Order.

Recommendation 31: The MPS should provide information to Londoners regularly on the progress of cases and arrests, especially where young people are involved as victims or perpetrators. Consideration should be given to using language and utilising information mechanisms that are young-people-friendly.

Recommendation 32: Safer Neighbourhoods Teams should develop links with private schools in their areas.

Recommendation 33: In order to improve the confidence of young people, Safer Neighbourhoods Teams and Safer Schools Officers should consider how young people could provide feedback to officers on positive and negative experiences that they have had with the police.

Recommendation for the Independent Police Complaints Commission

Recommendation 34: In order to improve young people’s confidence in the complaints system, the Independent Police Complaints Commission should ensure that the system accessible to young people and should highlight and promote the outcomes of complaints.

Recommendation for the Association of Police Authorities

Recommendation 35: The Association of Police Authorities should continue to build on existing marketing campaigns to improve young people’s understanding of stop and search and should identify additional communication and information mechanisms to raise awareness of young peoples rights in regards to stop and search.

Recommendations for the Metropolitan Police Service and the Metropolitan Police Authority

Recommendation 36: The MPA and the MPS should provide clear information to Londoners on how regional and borough-wide policing priorities are developed and set.

Chapter 5 - The role of non-police agencies in crime prevention

Recommendations for Local Authorities

Recommendation 37: The key responsibilities of every agency involved in a partnership concerning crime and community safety should be made available to all other partner agencies.

Recommendation 38: Local Authorities should:

1. undertake a review of existing youth provision to ensure that it meets the needs of young people;
2. proactively involve young people in the development of local youth provision to ensure take-up of activities;
3. promote youth provision, using a variety of young-people-friendly communication mechanisms;
4. ensure that youth provision is available at relevant times of the day and year and that it provides opportunities for skills development.

Recommendations for the Metropolitan Police Service

Recommendation 39: MPS officers working with child victims of rape and sexual exploitation should ensure that young people are signposted to specialist agencies to prevent further victimisation.

Recommendation 40: In regards to young people who are at risk of further victimisation, MPS officers should ensure that information collated via Merlin is shared with relevant partner agencies.

Recommendation 41: MPS should outline and promote the role of Safer Schools Officers to young people, teachers and other agencies in the school environment.

Recommendation 42: Safer Neighbourhoods Teams should develop links with private schools in their areas.

Recommendation 43: Safer Schools Officers should work in partnership with other agencies that are based in schools to ensure that a joined-up response is provided to vulnerable young people in these settings.

Recommendation 44: Front line officers should be provided with an understanding of the communities and geographical areas that they are responsible for policing. Relevant community and voluntary groups should provide information on both.

Recommendation for the Department for Children, Schools and Families

Recommendation 45: The Department for Children, Schools and Families should consider how the extended school programme could be used to address the crime prevention agenda and in particular how youth projects providing crime prevention and intervention programmes can support vulnerable young people in schools.

Recommendations for the Department of Health and the Department for Children, Schools and Families

Recommendation 46: The Department of Health and the Department for Children, Schools and Families should encourage a proactive involvement of borough health and education agencies in borough crime reduction partnerships and should consider and develop guidelines on how these agencies can fully support the crime prevention agenda.

Recommendation 47: The Department of Health and the Department for Children, Schools and Families should encourage borough health and education agencies to share proactively information on young people in need and at risk with relevant partner agencies.

Recommendation for the London Community Safety Partnership

Recommendation 48: Recognising that currently there are a number of pan-London boards which consider issues relating to youth crime, the London Community Safety Partnership should critically assess the remit and role of existing partnerships and consider how this work can be better aligned and streamlined.

Recommendation 49: The London Community Safety Partnership should consider the development of collocated multi agency service provision for young people at risk or in need.

Chapter 6 – Young people and the media

Recommendations for Local Authorities

Recommendation 50: The ACPO approach of providing young people with media training and a monthly newspaper column to share views, concerns and needs should be adopted and rolled out across the capital. Child-specific magazines alongside mainstream national and local press should also consider including regular contributions from young people.

Recommendation 51: Counter negative portrayals of young people by promoting positive portrayals of young people in the local media.

Recommendations for the media

Recommendation 52: Consider how press, radio, television and digital media can be adapted to:

1. provide a voice for young people;
2. provide guidance and influence young people.

Recommendation for all organisations working with and providing services for young people

Recommendation 53: All service providers, including the media, should consider the language that they use when speaking to or about young people. Consideration should always be given to avoiding pejorative and offensive language as this impacts negatively on young people and exacerbates fear of crime. 

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