| We have carried out an inquiry into anti-social behaviour (ASB) and the response to it from central and local government. ASB is defined as behaviour that causes, or is likely to cause, harassment, alarm or distress. It thus covers a wide range of actions. In our inquiry, we decided to focus upon three manifestations of ASB: namely, ASB perpetrated by young people, neighbour nuisance and alcohol-related disorder. We conclude that in none of these areas can it be said that problems have been exaggerated by the Government or played up by the media. They are real and, if anything, the headline figures cannot convey a sense of the full impact of aspects of ASB on some people's lives. We welcome the fact that the Government has said that tackling ASB is one of its priorities.
We heard evidence that the current definitions of anti-social behaviour are too broad, leading to jurisprudential and other concerns. However, we conclude that the definitions should not be changed: they work well from a practical enforcement point of view, are helpful in focusing on the effect on victims and offer the flexibility that is essential to allow problems of ASB to be highlighted and tackled where they are felt—at a local level.
At the same time, we conclude that local residents need to be more fully involved in the process of defining locally what is to be treated as ASB. We also believe that there is a need for more effective communication as to the standards of behaviour that are to be expected—especially in relation to young people. We welcome the introduction by the Government of Community Justice Centres in Merseyside and Warwickshire, and recommend that it expands this pilot scheme into other areas. We call on local authorities and Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships (CDRPs) to develop mechanisms to ensure that local views are taken fully into account.
A successful ASB strategy must address all aspects of the response, including diversion, enforcement and support. We reject arguments that the Government's ASB policies are overwhelmingly punitive towards children; nor is it true that its strategy is skewed towards enforcement. On the contrary, we have seen much evidence that in many parts of the country, legal powers are used only relatively rarely.
Overall, the balance of the Government's strategy is about right. We welcome the resources put in by the Government into diversion and support, are satisfied that there are now enough powers in place to deal with ASB, and commend the Home Office Anti-social Behaviour Unit on its work to improve the response at local level. We welcome the suggestion from the British Crime Survey that there has been a fall in the number of people perceiving ASB to be a problem in their area, although we would need to see a consistent trend over time to draw any firmer conclusions.
However, we conclude that the Government's strategy is being undermined by different philosophies, methods and tactics amongst key players. In particular, we were disappointed to hear that some social services departments, local educational authorities, Children and Adolescent Mental Health Services, Youth Services and children's non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are often not fully committed to local ASB strategies. The failure to attend meetings of Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships is just one symptom of this. Yet many perpetrators of ASB, both young and adult, are also the very people with complex support needs and therefore with whom these organisations are already, or should be, working.
We recognise the strain on budgets of social service departments and others, and discuss how some of the relevant difficulties could be overcome. But to the extent that non-participation reflects a rejection of the current ASB strategy as too punitive, we conclude that social services and others are foregoing the chance to influence the way in which it can be carried out at local level. We recommend that they reconsider whether, by attaching greater importance to tackling ASB, they could actually achieve more in relation to perpetrators of ASB with support needs than they are doing at present.
We recommend to the Government that it reacts to this key finding by incentivising partnership working, by working closely with ASB co-ordinators and by looking at whether the current power to share information might be changed into a duty.
We note that although the Government is investing very substantial resources that could assist in preventative work with young people and dysfunctional families, the funding streams are complex and we are not confident that the resources are always being targeted on those most in need of support. We therefore recommend that the Government should conduct a fundamental review of existing funding mechanisms with a view to allowing more flexible use of these funds at local level.
This notwithstanding, we also identify a number of areas where small amounts of extra Government funding would have a disproportionate impact on levels of ASB, especially ASB perpetrated by young people. These include small additional contributions to improve the availability of parenting classes targeted for parents whose children have been identified as being most of risk of future anti-social behaviour, funding for a significant expansion of the Youth Inclusion Programme, and extra funding for individual support orders and intensive family interventions.
We welcome the introduction of a number of new powers to deal with ASB, including housing injunctions and demotions, anti-social behaviour orders (ASBOs) and dispersal powers. These can provide much-needed relief for communities suffering from the impact of nuisance behaviour. However, in relation to the housing-based powers, we criticise the Government for failing to collect the data necessary to know whether they are being used or used effectively (although it does intend to begin collecting some data from this year). We recommend that qualitative research is commissioned as a matter of urgency to determine the take-up of the main housing powers, their effectiveness in tackling ASB and their impact on homelessness.
ASBOs are commonly seen as the central element of the response to ASB, although we emphasise that they are used only in response to a small fraction of incidents of ASB: in most cases, local authorities, housing associations and other agencies will try informal approaches first. We consider carefully the criticisms of ASBOs, but conclude that most are unfounded. However, we do recommend that the minimum term of ASBOs (currently of two years) be removed in relation to young people and consider that research is necessary to establish the reasons for those few ASBOs which have been issued inappropriately or contain inappropriate conditions.
Alcohol-related disorder is a growing problem, in particular in town and city centres on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights, and despite many initiatives from Government, police, the alcohol industry and others. The Government's strategy currently focuses on irresponsible individual drinkers and individual premises. It has introduced new powers in relation to both and its licensing reforms are premised on the notion that there is a need to tackle irresponsible alcohol outlets. We note both, and make recommendations to improve them, but we conclude that, on their own, these measures will not solve the problem of alcohol disorder. This is because disorder and alcohol-related ASB occur most frequently in public spaces outside the control of even the best-run premises. The problems on the streets being experienced in many town and city centres must be seen as the aggregate effect of many people under the influence of alcohol criss-crossing in small areas with insufficient transport, toilet and other facilities, rather than as the exceptional behaviour of the irresponsible few.
We thus make two key recommendations in this area. First, we recommend that pubs and clubs in designated areas should pay a mandatory contribution to help solve local problems of alcohol-related disorder. The size of the contribution should vary according to the size of the premises. It should be completely unrelated to issues of fault: the principle should be that licensing mechanisms will be used to maximum effect to require every pub and club in the area to act responsibly, and a mandatory contribution will be taken to help pay for the aggregate effect of large-scale drunkenness in public space.
Second, we conclude that the problem of alcohol-related disorder must be addressed primarily through proper city planning, in its widest sense. We accept that not everything can change immediately: for instance, it will take time to reverse the over-concentration of licensed premises in some areas of towns and cities. However, some measures can and should be taken now. We recommend that all local authorities with designated disorder areas should have a duty to produce a plan indicating how they will provide the infrastructure to cope with the night-time economy and what would be needed to finance that plan. In addition, we conclude that adequate late-night transport is absolutely essential if a real impact is to be made on levels of disorder and ASB. We therefore recommend, as a matter of urgency, that the Government identifies 50 areas in which alcohol disorder is highest, works closely with local government in helping it to solve logistical problems relating to late-night transport, and assesses whether additional funding is needed (on top of the mandatory contributions from local licensed premises) to cover local transport costs.
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