London Criminal Justice Board - Diamond initiative

Report: 16
Date: 19 June 2008
By: the Assistant Commissioner Territorial Policing on behalf of the Commissioner

Summary

This report updates the MPA on the London Diamond Initiative, as reported to the MPA Co-ordination and Policing Committee on 5 June 2008, in the Safer Neighbourhoods update report. This report seeks delegated authority to be given to the Chief Executive to sign the joint agreement on behalf of the Authority.

A. Recommendations

Members are asked to:

1. Note the current position on the initiative.

2. Delegate authority to the Chief Executive to sign the joint agreement on behalf of the Authority.

B. Supporting information

1. Building on the success of the Safer Neighbourhood Programme, the London Diamond Initiative aims to break the cycle of re-offending, and thereby reduce the demand for prison places, by multi agency intervention to address the needs of offenders. The reduction in the need for prison places would release funding that can allow resources to be targeted on key areas of London where offenders reside with greater emphasis on local ownership of those in trouble with the law and the development of local solutions. This approach has been developed in the US – the concept of Million Dollar Blocks - and has been considered in Gateshead, led by probation with the local authority as a pivotal partner.

2. The London Diamond Initiative will explore the potential for justice re-investment by testing whether enhanced criminal justice and community outcomes can be delivered through a combination of:

•  Targeting multi-agency resources on resettlement, in areas with high volumes of resident offenders and
• Deploying those resources through a model of multi-agency working, anchored to the existing model of Neighbourhood Policing, and compatible with the Integrated Offender Management (IOM) approach.

3. The benefits of the approach are expected to be: Safer Neighbourhoods, reduced costs of crime and a reduction in the demand for custody from identified target neighbourhoods (including youth).

4. The pilot of the initiative will be in place for two years and will deliver multi-agency teams of five key partner agency workers (one from the London Probation service) selected to meet the needs of an identified area, and an additional sergeant, six constables and two Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs) as an enhancement to the existing Safer Neighbourhood Team. These resources will be co-located and tasked with delivering a range of interventions through an integrated offender management process which supports individual offenders, their families and the wider community.

Progress to date

5. A number of boroughs were identified as having wards with high volumes of resident offenders. Those boroughs that expressed interest in participating in the project have been assessed by the London Criminal Justice Board (LCJB) on their capacity to match fund resources for the initiative, the strength and quality of local partnerships and existing resettlement provision in the borough.

6. As a result, Newham Borough has been selected as an early adopted of the initiative by the LCJB Reform Programme Board. It is anticipated that other boroughs will join the initiative and members of the project team are working with some boroughs to further refine their proposals.

7. This project has gained the support of the Minister of Justice and the Attorney General as well as the Home Office, Probation Services and local authorities. The LCJB will manage communication with Ministers, Ministry of Justice and the Home Office.

8. The Minister of Justice, Jack Straw, the Home Secretary will ‘launch’ this initiative at Newham on 23 June as part of the National IOM programme.

9. An evaluation strategy is being formulated and will be led by Professor Betsy Stanko, Head of Strategic Research within the MPS, with links being established to the national programme evaluation on Integrated Offender Management.

Project dependencies

10. The project is dependent on:

• Central Government funding over the two years for the central team (capital and running costs) and part of the pilot projects
• Metropolitan Police funding over the two years towards the pilot teams
• Local authority funding over the two years for the remainder of the pilot teams
• Sufficient offenders leaving custody and living in targeted areas during the project to provide a sufficient sample size for analysis
• Co-operation from Primary Care Trusts, Mental Health Trusts, Jobcentre Plus, Learning & Skills Council, National Treatment Agency, local authorities and third sector organisations.
• Funding from London Probation

Key benefits

11. The key benefits for the MPS and partner agencies will be:

• An absolute reduction in the re-offending rate of the offender cohort selected by the scheme
• A reduction in the seriousness of further offences committed by the cohort
• A reduction in enforcement action undertaken by probation/Youth Offending Team (YOT) correlated to an improvement in compliance rates
• A reduction in the short term (less than 12 months) prison population
• An increase in the access to and take-up of mainstream and third sector services amongst the cohort.

Strategic risks

12. The following strategic risks and responses have been identified:

Table 1: Strategic risks and responses

Contribution to Strategic Priorities

13. The project will directly support the MPS strategic priorities on Safer Neighbourhoods, Citizen Focus, Criminal Networks, and Counter Terrorism. It will also give support to outcomes - Preventing and reducing crime and disorder, vulnerability and harm, Improving safety and security and public reassurance, and increased community engagement, confidence and satisfaction with the service.

14. The project directly addresses two national strategic priorities – Public Service Agreement (PSA) 23: Making communities safer and PSA 16: Socially excluded adults and contributes to the wider PSA set, including PSA 14: increasing the number of children and young people on the path to success, PSA 24: Deliver a more effective, transparent and responsive Criminal Justice System (CJS) for victims and the public and PSA 25: Reduce the harm caused by drugs and alcohol.

15. The performance management framework has been designed to incorporate the following key outcome measures.

• Re-offending Rate: cohort charge and reconviction rates monitored over two year scheme period and reconvictions evaluated against a matched offender sample
• Reduced seriousness: seriousness of cohort’s re-offending during two year period compared to seriousness of previous offending
• Enforcement/compliance: ‘breach’ action taken by probation/YOTs in cohort compared to overall breach rate and assured against compliance level
• Prison population: reduction in frequency of cohort being sentenced to less than 12 months custody controlled against no increase in custodial length compared to previous pattern
• Service access/take-up: cohort needs (seven offender resettlement pathways) identified at outset compared to needs met at termination.

Abbreviations

CoP

Co-ordination & Policing Committee

IOM

Integrated Offender Management

PCSO

Police Community Support Officers

LCJB

London Criminal Justice Board

YOT

Youth Offending Team

CJS

Criminal Justice System

HR

Human Resources

PSA

Public Service Agreement

MOJ

Ministry of Justice

SNU

Safer Neighbourhoods Unit

TP

Territorial Policing

C. Race and equality impact

The LCJB Project team will be commissioning an ‘Equalities Impact Assessment’ for the project as a whole once the final selection of pilot areas has been agreed. This will be adapted and refined for use and publication by the project boards on each of the selected boroughs

D. Financial implications

1. Table 1 below summarises the costs of implementing three pilot sites (assuming each pilot area is a ward), which would run over a two year period.

(Pay costs are based on 2008/09 pay rates)

Table 1: Cost summary of implementing three pilot sites (assuming each pilot area is a ward)

2. The costs are based on the assumption that an existing neighbourhood team within each of the proposed pilot wards will be enhanced by one sergeant, six police constables (PCs) and two PCSOs, together with five other multi agency staff.

3. The MPS contribution to the pilot costs includes the current Safer Neighbourhood Team and two PCSOs per team from within Territorial Policing’s (TPs) current PCSO pool (funded). The other police officers will be provided from within the 320 allocated as potential additional officers to boroughs and on the same cost-sharing basis. If additional funding is required because the allocation of 320 is exceeded by demand from the boroughs and these pilots, that will be found from within the deferred income, relating to safer neighbourhoods, brought forward from 2007/08. The accommodation costs shown are based on an estimate of enhancing existing safer neighbourhood bases to accommodate the new staff.

4. The provisional commitment from central government of £1million for 2008/09 (£700,000 Ministry of Justice (MOJ) and £300,000 Home Office) will provide sufficient match funding to support three pilot sites. The funding required for 2009/10 and 2010/11 has been included on the basis that this will be funded by both the Ministry of Justice (MOJ) and the Home Office. Whilst continued funding from the Government is expected for the period covered by the pilot, if for any reason the funding is not forthcoming then again, as with the cost sharing scheme, there is sufficient deferred income carried forward from 2007/08 to cover lack of central funding. The success of the pilots is dependent on the partnership approach outlined in the report and on the funding support of all agencies involved. There is no liability on the MPS in respect of any funding shortfall by other agencies.

5. The pilots will be subject to an agreed performance monitoring framework. Following the assessment of the pilots, any proposal to extend the pilots or expand the scheme to other boroughs will be subject to a further report identifying the resourcing implications and to the normal MPA/MPS budget and decision making processes.

6. Under the current proposal, the strategic governance of the scheme rests with the LCJB Programme Board. Any expenditure incurred by the MPS will be subject to MPA/MPS governance arrangements. Given the nature of this proposal the Authority is asked to agree delegated authority for the Chief Executive to enter into an agreement with LCJB on behalf of the Authority.

E. Background papers

•  London Diamond Initiative’ Project Initiation Document.

F. Contact details

Report author(s): Detective Superintendent Martin Stevens (TP SNU/LCJB), MPS

For more information contact:

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

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