Use of MPA Partnerships Fund 2004/05

Report: 14
Date: 28 July 2005
By: the Chief Executive & Clerk

Summary

The MPA, as a responsible authority on Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships (CDRPs), contributed £50,000 to each CDRP in London to support its partnership activity. This report outlines the uses of this fund across London.

A. Recommendation

That

1. members note and comment upon the use of the MPA Partnership Fund in 2004/05; and
2. agree further work by officers to explore more flexible and effective systems for the application of the Partnerships Fund.

B. Supporting information

1. At its meeting of 11 February 2005, the Co-ordination and Policing Committee agreed to receive regular reports on the disposition of the MPA’s Partnerships Fund. This fund arose from the MPA’s Scrutiny into Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships (CDRPs) in 2003. The MPA agreed a recommendation from this scrutiny to contribute £50,000 to each CDRP. The MPA at this time had just become one of five statutory partners on every CDRP and the fund was designed to support the MPA’s contribution to the work of CDRPs across London. The fund was placed with the Borough Commander to use in accordance with the following broad guidance:

1. To involve and consult closely with the MPA Link Member in the selection of projects to receive support.
2. To use the fund for projects that arise out of and support the local CDRP Strategy and Action Plan, and that reflect the priorities of the Partnership.
3. To agree the selection of projects to receive support with the Partnership, and, so far as possible, to use the fund as leverage to draw in other support in cash or kind.

2. Some of the underlying principles of the fund as conceived were that it should be locally driven, the bureaucracy and guidance should be kept to a minimum and that it should enable the MPS, along with the MPA, to contribute to partnership working in means other than staffing resources.

3. This report presents the 2004/05 outturn for members’ consideration. Rather than presenting an itemised list of expenditure for each borough, Appendix 1 presents a break down of expenditure in terms of broad categories of use. The categories were assigned to each item by MPA officers according to the description given on the schedule provided by the MPS and are therefore indicative. If members find this analysis useful, further work can be carried out to explore categorising expenditure in a more defined way for future reports. Each Member has been given a full list of uses of the fund for their link boroughs.

Findings

4. The MPA contributed a total of £1.6m towards CDRPs in 2004/05, across London [1].

5. The largest proportion of the fund (24.7%) went towards the funding of locally led projects, schemes and initiatives, with allocations for individual projects ranging from as little as £500 to £20 000. The broad range of these schemes is shown in Appendix 2. Further analysis highlights that the MPA fund has proved an effective and responsive source of funding for schemes requiring relatively small pockets of funding without the need to negotiate multiple layers of decision-making and bureaucracy.

6. The fund has also been used towards supporting posts and salaries for projects and initiatives (8.8%). This has often enabled critical projects dealing with issues such as domestic violence to be sustained. In general, the use of the fund for mainstream posts is not encouraged and it is recommended that members remain mindful of this when discussing allocations, particularly as the level of funding cannot be guaranteed beyond any single year.

7. Another common use was the funding of operational policing costs, such as overtime and hire vehicles (8.3%). In many instances, this supported partnership-led projects in response to local issues and enabled police involvement with multi-agency days that may not have fallen within general policing priorities and targets. However, in future further scrutiny needs to be maintained on such use to ensure this does not replace or cover any deficits in the normal police budget.

8. 7% of the fund went towards communications and publicity work such as crime prevention posters, leaflet campaigns and video/DVD projects. Publicity campaigns remain a core element of community safety strategies and the MPA contribution greatly assists in this work. The MPA should support the development of local integrated communication strategies so that such publicity around fear of crime, crime prevention and crime reporting is integrated into local mainstream communications activities of all partners.

9. 6.2% of the fund went towards supporting the operational costs of partnership work. This included costs incurred by local authorities and other partners towards the operation and development of CDRPs, as well as Local Strategic Partnerships (LSPs). All partnerships completed self- assessments in 2004, which broadly identified the need to develop CDRPs’ governance processes and capacity to deliver. As such, the fund has enabled the MPA to contribute to the continued improvement of partnership working.

10. At present approx £280 000 (17.5%) of the fund remains unspent, of which £200 000 has yet to be allocated. The MPA has agreed that, on submission of a spending plan, funds can be carried forward to 2005/06. This is intended to encourage long-term effective use of the fund and to avoid encouraging ill-considered last minute expenditure in the rush to use all monies by the year-end. It is not clear in all cases as to why the funds have not been fully utilised. It may be that some partnerships are still undecided on how best to use the funds and some further work could be carried out to showcase and promote more informed uses of the fund. In some boroughs, it is still not widely known that the MPA has contributed this funding and this may also have curtailed its use. This report will therefore be circulated to CDRPs to raise awareness of the MPA fund.

11. 2.0% of funds were used towards consultation activity and 4.7% towards the funding of voluntary and community sector groups. This represents a further £106 000 used to support local community engagement in addition to the funding the MPA already contributes to community engagement through Community and Police Consultative Groups and Community Safety Boards. The fund has therefore enabled CDRPs to increase their engagement with, and involvement of, communities in the development of projects and strategies.

12. A further 2.4% of the fund has been contributed to the costs associated with the production and publication of the 2004 crime and disorder audits and the 2005/08 strategies.

13. For 2005/06 it is proposed that further work is carried out by officers to a) promote recognition of the fund and its uses, b) to improve guidance on the recording of use of the funds, including spend categorisation, and c) to strengthen the liaison between borough commanders with MPA members and other partners on the use of the fund.

14. Officers will work with local partners on the development of pooled funding and Local Area Agreements where this impacts upon the MPA Partnership Fund. Internal and external discussions on the future of the Fund will also be needed in response to MPA proposals relating to borough level community engagement.

Fund allocation

15. At its meeting of 1 February 2005 the Co-ordination and Policing Committee agreed to retain the current framework for fund allocation. However the following factors now indicate that officers should explore an improved system for the allocation and use of partnership funds.

1. With the advent of Local Area Agreements in the next financial year, the use of partnership funds will be overseen by local strategic partnerships who, under certain circumstances, will have the ability to vire funds between the strands ‘Stronger Safer Communities’, ‘Children and Young People’ and ‘Healthier Communities’. The Authority is not a member of local strategic partnerships as a matter of statutory right though a small number of members attend in another capacity.
2. Opportunities for broad partnership initiatives have been lost to the Authority because we have not been able to access our partnership funding as a result of the way in which it is allocated. The Home Office review of the Crime and Disorder Act and CDRPs will present the Authority, in the coming year, with further challenges, particularly in relation to community engagement. We should ensure that we are in a financial position to respond to these opportunities.
3. The extent to which members are consulted on the use of the MPA Partnership Fund could be improved. In the light of forthcoming inspections of CDRPs by the Audit Commission, it is essential that there is an audit trail, which demonstrates the Authority’s involvement in CDRPs and commitment to discharging its statutory duties.

C. Race and equality impact

The decision-making on the use of the MPA’s Partnership Fund, which is primarily related to supporting crime and disorder strategy activities, is devolved to the local level. The MPA is working with, but cannot direct the local partners to target the funds towards specific communities or uses. However, the development and implementation of the MPA’s community engagement strategy, will ensure the MPA is better able to ensure its funding supports a framework of community engagement that serves the needs of the whole community.

D. Financial implications

1. The MPA allocated £50,000 to each CDRP in 2004/05, equating to a total budget of £1.6m. Of this £1.32m was fully spent by the end of the financial year, with all under spends being carried forward by the relevant CDRPs to supplement their budgets for 2005/06.

2. The fund continues to be allocated on a basis designed to be as flexible and non-prescriptive as possible.

E. Background papers

None

F. Contact details

Report author: Jude Sequeira and Natasha Porter, Partnerships Support Officers, MPA.

For more information contact:

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

Appendix 2

Breakdown of 2004/05 Spend by Categories

Send an e-mail linking to this page

Feedback