Inter agency working on Anti Social Behaviour

09/10
16 April 2010
MPA briefing paper 09/2010

Author: Paul Dunn, MPS

This briefing paper has been prepared to inform members and staff. It is not a committee report and no decisions are required.

Summary

The London Anti Social Behaviour (ASB) Board is part of the London Community Safety Partnership. The delivery of the Board’s goals is supported by the London ASB Joint Action Group (JAG) which coordinates delivery of pan-London activities. The London ASB Practitioners’ Forum is used as a means to keep in touch with all of London’s ASB practitioners, to share best practice and keep everyone informed of the pan-London activity which follows:

Inter agency work underway to tackle ASB across London

The Metropolitan Police (MPS) continues to value its strong and productive relationships and connections across London in working together to provide safer and more secure communities. In Oct 2009 after the Home Secretary launched the National Anti-social Behaviour Action Plan, the MPS and key partners signed up to reviewing and improving local responses. Strongly influenced by high profile incidents such as the tragic case of the Pilkington family, boroughs reviewed the effectiveness of local information sharing processes and problem solving approaches to high risk individuals and/or families subjected to ongoing anti-social behaviour.

The MPS also responded by setting up an internal group to provide a strategic oversight into how the MPS responds to public expectations in the way that it delivers appropriate responses to ASB and how it recognises and protects repeat and vulnerable victims. Other areas under MPS review consist of the development of clear systems, processes and protocols to ensure a consistent delivery of MPS services and to develop a clear understanding of what the minimum policing response to ASB will look like.

In addition, the MPS has been overseeing with the Home Office and Government Office for London an overview of ASB services in the 19 London ASB Priority* areas (* Using Place Survey data, boroughs that had a high percentage of residents who thought ASB was a problem in their local area). This entailed a self assessment of local ASB service delivery including, partnership working, information sharing, local structures, responses to victim and witnesses and use of ASB tools and powers. Each of these areas has produced local delivery improvement plans and on 31 March 2010, all 33 London boroughs submitted ASB minimum standards which will be shortly published and promoted to inform local people of what services are available to report ASB, and what to expect from local partnerships if you are a victim or witness to ASB.

The intention of the London ASB Board, using the MPS Policing Pledge, is to investigate the possibility of London-wide minimum standards that would take into account local victim champions or leads so that wherever you live in London you will be entitled to the same standards of reporting and protection. It is also the intention of the Board to carry out the same process of self assessment and delivery improvement in the remaining 14 London Boroughs. To date all have expressed an interest to carry out this process.

An initial inspection of forces including the MPS at the end of 2009, by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate For Constabularies examined information on how forces deal with repeat victims of anti-social behaviour, who are often devastated by their experiences. Although there are surveys telling us what people think about ASB, the HMIC produced the Police Score Card to present credible data on the service delivered to victims, particularly repeat victims. On inspection, the MPS were identified as competent in a number of areas but as with all forces a number of areas required further clarity and improvement. The internal MPS ASB Group is leading on this piece of work and is accountable to the Commander of Safer Neighbourhoods and Partnerships, and ultimately the Territorial Policing Chief Officer Group for the development and delivery of the MPS ASB Action Plan and activities to improve organizational performance.
The MPS fully acknowledges its responsibilities to review and improve cohesive and consistent relationships, both strategically and operationally, and has not only been a lead agency in the formation and success of the London ASB Board, it has provided a programme manager to assist in the delivery of the London ASB Action Plan for 2010/11.

One of the priorities for the next year’s Action Plan is already under way, to develop a borough Joint Analytical Group, which will involve a co-located team from each partner agency to work together for one day a week to share, analyse and deliver on both personalised and de-personalised partnership information and intelligence available from a range of different agencies with the intention of increasing local public confidence through the police and other agencies working more closely together. In doing so, we hope to reduce complaints and local incidences of ASB which will lead to increasing local resident perceptions of the quality of local public services. The Home Office has expressed an interest in this project and may wish to include it as one of the small number of good practice sites that they are reviewing across the country.

Harrow has been selected as the borough that will develop the initial concept with the full support and involvement of the MPS. The pilot will be overseen by a strategic group who will ensure that good and innovative practices already established in other boroughs are incorporated into achieving a more locally focused and reliable way of sharing information and identifying emerging themes more effectively to all an early intervention approach to be adopted to many local cases. It is important that whatever model evolves from this process has the capability to be extended and joined up across other areas of the capital to improve consistency and efficiency across boroughs.

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