Integrating neighbourhood management & neighbourhood policing: towards joint service delivery

Chris Williams, National Policing Improvement Agency & Improvement and Development Agency

Summary:

This masterclass will examine the early findings of the NPIA's "Integrating Neighbourhood Management and Neighbourhood Policing" Exemplar Sites programme. The programme identifies a number of key sites across the country where experienced practitioners already provide Joint Service Delivery between neighbourhood policing teams and neighbourhood managers. The sites have been chosen to reflect the differing make-up of neighbourhoods in Britain, e.g. there will be a wide mix of urban, rural, coastal, deprived, affluent, unitary, two-tier etc. areas involved. This mirrors the emphasis on integrated service delivery identified in the Policing Green Paper.

The masterclass will:

• Explain the key principles of Integrated Service Delivery between Neighbourhood Policing and Neighbourhood Management informing the NPIA's programme
• Give some examples of existing good practice
• Provide delegates with an opportunity to identify a pilot site that most closely matches their own neighbourhood.

The key condition of acceptance as an exemplar site is a willingness to work with other CDRPs, Local Authorities, neighbourhood managers and Neighbourhood Policing teams to help improve joint service delivery across the board. Each site will warmly welcome delegations from other areas and provide support and guidance to colleagues who are not yet at as advanced a stage of integrated delivery. This will lead to a wide-ranging national Community of Practice for integrating Neighbourhood Management and Neighbourhood Policing, which delegates will be encouraged to join.

This masterclass will allow delegates to identify the exemplar site most similar to their own neighbourhood/s, and through the NPIA representative present establish ongoing peer-led support networks.

Changing Behaviours - Leeds - a city perspective, New Forest - a more rural perspective

Brian Byrne, New Forest District Council and Nick Bartrum, Team Leader, Leeds City Council

Summary:

A City Approach

The Leeds City Council Anti-Social Behaviour Unit has established a section to work within the integrated offender management framework. The section sits alongside the asb enforcement officers, the Police, and Victim Support, creating an opportunity for excellent working relationships where information can be readily exchanged and acted upon.

An ASB manager and Victim Support Officer will lead the session presenting delegates with an opportunity to hear about the reasoning behind establishing the section, some of the benefits and pitfalls encountered during its establishment and how it works in coordination with other agencies to manage offenders behaviour and support victims of crime.

A Rural Approach

From the New Forest comes an alternative to more asset rich ASB and offender management that achieves proven good results and is not based on a centralised team.

This Partnership covers 285 square miles, 175,000 population and has minimal resources.  It is a lower crime area but reports higher worry indices. This presentation will set out how these characteristics have shaped an approach to community safety which may offer lessons for other rural areas.

The Partnership  has reviewed it’s working practices and has reformed it’s work around tackling anti-social behaviour, reducing entrants into the criminal justice system (youth and adult), reducing re-offending and PPO work. The Partnership operates a Partnership Intervention Panel (PIP) which meets every two weeks to action plan individual cases that are referred by agencies and a monthly PIP+ which accepts referrals from the PIP for prolific and priority offenders.  No PPO is adopted without other intervention methods being tried or assessed for potential impact. This approach has shown a 70% intervention success and the New Forest has a very good and improving record of reduction of entrants to the CJS (young people). Youth Offending Team and Probation are happy with this approach and childrens services have been sharing CAF information where appropriate. The PIP has links to the safeguarding process.

If early intervention is not successful the Partnership has developed and  adopted a protocol (suitable for court challenges to process) that takes the process through to ABCs and ASBOs. The Acceptable Behaviour Contracts Co-ordinator is available to work on both ASB type of offending as well as PPOs on the rehab and resettle strand. Youth Inclusion Support Panel is also mapped in to the process.

The session will give delegates an opportunity to investigate how these models could be replicated across other Local Authority areas.

Graffiti - are we dealing with Public Art or Vandalism?

Dr Tim Pascoe, Director, Griffin Research & Consultancy Ltd

Summary:

Graffiti and etching are a major problem to local authorities and public sector agencies because graffiti can increase levels of crime and the fear of crime. Furthermore the financial costs involved in cleaning, repairing and replacing property defaced by graffiti are considerable. An example of its financial impact is given by London Underground who spends approximately £20 million and 70,000 hours each year removing graffiti from their network.

Recognising these issues Transport For London commissioned a piece of work which focused on current practice in graffiti management both in the UK and other countries. Workshops were commissioned in the Netherlands, Spain and the USA where local experts came together to share their experiences. Those experts ranged from actual graffiti 'artists' through to 'graffiti' police. The aims of the workshops were to explore:

• The types of graffiti problems experienced and the motivations of the offenders
• Details of the approaches and measures used to tackle graffiti
• Why were those particular approaches/measures used
• Whether the approaches/measures used targeted the motivations of offenders
• Any associated media strategies
• Strengths and weaknesses of the approaches/measures used
• How success in managing graffiti was measured (if at all)
• Examples of where the approaches/measures used have been particularly successful and why.

This seminar/workshop will reflect back the results of this work and enable Community Safety Professionals to be able to make graffiti management decisions based on an informed view and an evidence base of solutions.

The NI Housing Exec's experience of partnering community based organisations in the delivery of community Restorative Justice

Frank Mulhern and Brendan Donaghy, Northern Ireland Housing Executive

Summary:

Over the past 18 months the Housing Executive has developed a new and innovative approach to addressing anti-social behaviour through the partnering of two Community Based Restorative Justice organisations in Belfast. Both projects have been funded through the Housing Executive, the police and an American philanthropic organisation. The partnerships deliver mediation and community support packages within specific geographic boundaries of the city. The two Community Based Restorative Justice organisations are Northern Ireland Alternatives located in North Belfast and Community Restorative Justice Ireland in West Belfast.

Historically and culturally communities in both areas have had a distrust of statutory agencies and have failed to report anti social behaviour when it occurs. The result of this distrust has led to an acceptance of "tolerable" levels of anti social behaviour, low level criminality and paramilitarism. Strategically the projects were established to encourage greater community confidence in reporting ASB.

As part of the project an individual is provided with the choice of reporting ASB to the Housing Executive or the community based organisation who will work together to resolve the anti social activity. This can involve mediation ( face to face or shuttle) or it can involve support to the individual or household through mentoring, support and advice.

Initial feedback to date has been positive with a marginal increase in reporting. The real success has been in the preventative aspects of the new service, particularly in working with local youths and community groups.

The presentation provides a strategic a overview of how the service fits within the Housing Executive's approach to empowering communities to engage in addressing ASB. The presentation will also cover the operational aspects of delivery and the lessons learnt…warts and all, and highlight insights for transferable best practice.

Leeds' Award Winning Weapons Awareness Programme

Keith Lawrance, Alcohol and Violent Crime Delivery Manager, Leeds City Council

Summary:

In response to the growing concern about knife crime and following a Home Office Conference in Leeds in 2004, the Leeds Weapons Awareness Programme (WAP) was developed.

The project is aimed at deterring young people from carrying knives and breaking the culture of knife carrying. The programme is impactive and based on real case studies. It is delivered by over 100 volunteers trainers from a cross section of key partnership agencies, both statutory and voluntary (Police, Council, YOS, Education).

The training is accredited by the 'Be-Safe' Training Organisation (www.besafeproject.org.uk) and its objectives are to:

• Deliver the Weapons Awareness Programme in a responsible way.
• Assist and contribute in the reduction of youth offending and re-offending.
• Assist in the reduction of the numbers of weapons being carried by young people.
• Promote a safer community

The programme was initially managed the voluntary sector organisation and reliant on grant funding; however a key partnership with the Royal Armouries (Leeds) led to it being adopted by them. It is now a key foundation for their future developmental work in preventative educational work with young people.

This project is the largest social crime reduction initiative ever undertaken in the UK and has been very well received by schools, pupils and parents alike. It has stimulated a regular flow of intelligence from pupils in schools that leads to the recovery of weapons from pupils.

This session will provide

• A brief overview of the development of the programme
• A demonstration of programme delivery by a trainer
• An examination of the future sustainability of the project

Action Learning Taster Session

Ben Lee, Programme Director and Rachael Thompson, Consultant, Shared Intelligence

Summary:

The workshop will provide participants with a taste of action learning.

Action learning involves people with similar roles and responsibilities e.g. community safety officers, working in small groups to tackle important organisational issues or problems and learn from their attempts to address these. Individuals are given the opportunity to talk in depth about a current work based issue they are facing. Often by discussing the problem with others and responding to their questions, the individual is given new insight into the situation and ideas for how to resolve the issue.

Action learning is not simply about solving your own issues but to use your knowledge to support others to resolve issues. Although each issue presented will be distinctive to the individual there will be common themes of experience upon which the members will be able to draw.

The taster session will be facilitated by Ben Lee and Rachael Thompson. In this workshop they will:

• explain the action learning method and its benefits
• encourage participants to share ideas and issues with each other
• illustrate how members can learn from each other and help colleagues think through problems and find their own way forward.

A holistic approach to alcohol in Barnsley

Sarah Mainwaring, Partnership Director, Barnsley Safer Communities Partnership

Summary:

Barnsley has had a co-ordinated approach to tackling alcohol related harm and ASB, starting with the Barnsley Offender Management Forum commissioning a conference to look at the extent of the harm, what is working to tackle the issue, what the gaps in provision are and what agencies can jointly do to address these.

This session investigates the impact of local project initiatives which resulted from this coordinated approach such as

• Dance theatre in all secondary schools
• Taxi marshalling on Fri/Sat nights to reduce ASB
• A triage team on the street to deal with alcohol related injury or illness with quick access to ambulance crews/paramedics if necessary
• Traffic restrictions and use of CCTV monitored closely by the police and Safer Neighbourhood teams.
• BARJI - Barnsley Alcohol Restorative Justice Initiative - using reparation, mediation and group conferencing to address the needs of victims of alcohol related crime.
• Bacchanal - Barnsley Police's approach to the night time economy, a tried and tested series of police operations to maximise the safety of the public visiting the town during licensed premises opening times.

These projects have received finance from a variety of sources and provide good examples of partnership working and funding.

Programme Quick Links
Day One - Tuesday 9th June | Day Two - Wednesday 10th June