This week marks the start of the next phase in the Government’s programme of police reform. The white paper ‘Building Communities, Beating Crime: a better police service for the 21 st century’ sets out the Government’s future vision for providing safety and security for law-abiding citizens and their families.
It is an ambitious and far-reaching programme, with an unambiguous focus on tackling crime, anti-social behaviour and the misuse of drugs. The Government recognises that if we are to be successful in the longer term in tackling the social, economic and environmental drivers of crime and disorder, collaborative, co‑ordinated and community based action must take place within an enabling legislative framework. In support of this, we will be conducting a formal review of the partnership provisions of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 (as amended by the Police Reform Act 2002).
The 1998 Act recognised the central importance of collaboration. It provided the framework for partners to work together in Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships (CDRPs) to achieve significant improvements in local community safety. Many CDRPs have worked well, implementing robust multi-agency strategies shaped by the needs and concerns of local people, contributing to sustained reductions in crime and tangible improvements in local quality of life. We want to build on these successes, to ensure that CDRPs are the most effective possible vehicle for reducing crime, anti-social behaviour and substance misuse in local communities.
Some CDRPs, however, are demonstrably less effective than others. The complexities of multi-agency working can sometimes stand in the way of delivering genuine improvements in community safety. For example, partnerships can struggle to maintain a full contribution from all key agencies. Lack of clarity about roles and responsibilities, as well as blurred lines of accountability, can lead to some agencies abrogating their responsibility for crime reduction. There is currently little external scrutiny of the work of CDRPs and the Government is clear that accountability for crime reduction must be better embedded into local communities. This means ensuring that people know how to engage with local partnerships and understand what they can expect from the agencies working for them.
Our overall objective in carrying out this review is to strengthen the visibility, responsiveness and role of local partnerships. We will cover a broad range of issues relating to the governance, structure and delivery of CDRPs. These include key questions around the role of CDRPs and how best to drive up their performance; ensuring partnerships engage effectively with local communities, share information and work to mainstream crime reduction across the activities of partner agencies. We will look at the membership of CDRPs and consider how best to manage delivery in areas with two tiers of local government and overlapping boundaries between different public agencies. In focusing on delivery, we also aim to reinforce the new joint approach to tackling local crime and disorder problems in conjunction with issues around the misuse of drugs and alcohol.
Full terms of reference for the review can be found at Appendix IV to the white paper, which is available at: www.policereform.gov.uk
The involvement of stakeholders and practitioners will be pivotal to the success of the review. It is being carried out jointly by the Home Office, the Local Government Association, the Association of Chief Police Officers and the Association of Police Authorities. As well as an Advisory Group, which will report its conclusions to Ministers by the end of January 2005, the review will take reports from a series of thematic working groups and regional workshops.
I would like to take this opportunity to strongly encourage you and your colleagues to attend one of these workshops, which will be taking place in Birmingham , London and Sheffield on 30 th November, 7 th December and 8 th December 2004 , with a workshop for Welsh partnerships in Cardiff on 2 nd December 2004 . Further details can be obtained through the Home Office teams in the relevant regional Government Office, or through the Community Safety Unit in the Welsh Assembly Government.
I do hope you will take this chance to contribute to this important piece of work, and to help to drive the future agenda for local Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships.
Kate Noble
Partnership Policy Team, Home Office
November 2004
 back to main archive page
|
