10. Written evidence from Monmouthshire
Community Safety Partnership
This report is an addendum to the oral evidence
submitted by John Palmer, the joint chair of the Monmouthshire
Community Safety Partnership and Assistant Chief Executive of
Monmouthshire County Council.
In 2002 the Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships
throughout Wales were renamed Community Safety Partnerships as
part of a concerted effort to widen their base. As such they are
still very much in their infancy as they seek to develop and engender
trust between partners and the community they serve. The last
Community Safety Audit, conducted in 2001, was very much a Police/Local
Authority collaboration, although the Partnership was subsequently
broadened to include other agencies who had played only a small
role in the audits and the development of the subsequent strategies.
It must therefore be appreciated that in this respect they have
questioned their commitment and role in a partnership, whose strategy
may not complement that of their own agency. This cannot be fully
resolved until the current audits are completed and all partners
contribute to the development of the new strategy for 2005-08.
This will hopefully provide a more robust local focus for the
Partnership.
The unprecedented growth in legislation by central
Government has raised expectations in crime and disorder reduction
during the past five years. However the rapid succession of related
legislation (Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001, Police Reform
Act 2002, Anti Social Behaviour Act 2003, Fireworks Act 2003,
Licensing Act 2003), guidance (Prolific & Other Priority Offender
Strategy) and associated white papers asking for comment has increased
the demands on community safety partnerships. This plethora of
legislation has come at a time when processes are still being
established, and individual agencies are themselves subject to
legislation.
Additionally, over the past three years, we
have seen an extension of responsibility for the partnerships
to include Substance Misuse, Domestic Violence and other hate
crime. To accommodate these additional responsibilities the Partnership
will need to further evolve. The partnership is actively seeking
to co-locate the different agencies to provide a closer structured
working environment although the expansion of responsibilities
exceeds the resources available.
From this expansion has arisen the problem of
how to integrate the work of the partnership to complement the
work of other partnerships within the area. Each agency and partnership
has their own objectives and performance indicators, sometimes
these do not coincide, especially when they are based on National
Performance measures rather than local need. Section 17 of the
Crime and Disorder Act means little to departments of local authorities
who are subject to legislation that appears to contradict the
Act eg Social Services working with young people struggle to equate
the provisions of the Children Act with Crime and Disorder legislation.
The Government's proposals to strengthen Section 17 outlined in
the new White Paper Building Communities, Beating Crime, will
help strengthen the case for mainstreaming crime and disorder
reduction objectives in local authority departmental plans.
On occasions there does not appear to be a joint
vision of Community Safety amongst ministries and the impact of
legislation has been lessened by the delay in obtaining Welsh
Assembly Government approval. This is a criticism but also a legacy
of devolution.
Monmouthshire as a partnership quickly recognised
its rurality and the isolation of its communities and established
RedPOP (Reduction by Problem Orientated Partnerships) groups in
the four main towns of the county to deal with local crime and
disorder issues. Partly due to this multi-agency approach and
the pro-active work of the individual agencies, the Partnership
has been able to invest in prevention, intervention and distraction
activities as an alternative to seeking Anti-Social Behaviour
Orders. In discussing individual cases there has been active support
from the Probation Service and particularly the Youth Offending
Team, which covers Monmouthshire and Torfaen. This team ranks
as the best in Wales and amongst the best in England and Wales.
Its officers work not only on a reactive basis through the criminal
justice system, but also as a pro-active team in supporting and
diverting those people identified as being at risk of offending.
It has also set up Acceptable Behaviour Contract Panels, to involve
community members in negotiating the Acceptable Behaviour Contracts
with those involved in low-level disorder. The partnership is
currently providing financial support for the expansion of this
work to include education, parenting and drug and alcohol support.
The partnership quickly set into place guidelines
and a practical working environment, from existing resources,
to support the work of dealing with Prolific and Priority Offenders.
This scheme has attempted to balance local need and national performance.
The Monmouthshire Partnership was originally
in a unique position in Wales where the police division straddled
two Community Safety Partnerships (although this has subsequently
changed). It has recognised the opportunities in working jointly
with the other community safety partnership within the Police
division where it has been felt appropriate to do so to provide
economies of scale. In commissioning substance misuse treatment
services, the partnership went further in agreeing with the four
other community safety partnerships within the Gwent Police area
to commission the services of the Kaleidoscope project. The social
housing component of "Through Care And Aftercare" has
also been commissioned in partnership with Torfaen.
It is recognised that Community Safety Partnerships
have generally failed to raise community awareness of their existence,
although the Monmouthshire Community Safety Partnership have backed
financially or otherwise initiatives that have had a positive
effect on the community. Examples of this include linking to Schools
and Youth projects eg Crucial Crew, Wings to fly and Crime of
your life and partnership backed project such as Cab Safe, Pubwatch,
the Bobby Van and a Distraction Burglary initiative.
As indicated earlier even within the Partnerships
themselves, some bodies have struggled with their roles. This
could be seen as being particularly true in the case of Local
Health Boards who have within two years been formed and made a
statutory partner and have had their influence diluted in the
commissioning of substance misuse services, the responsibility
for which having been passed on to the Partnership that they have
been required to join.
To support the Community Safety Partnerships
it is essential to look at the issues of funding and sustainability.
From the beginning it has been a balancing act in addressing short-term
funding against long-term outcomes. A merging of funding streams
and conditions on spend together with rolling programmes and the
long-term notice for cessation of funding can only help in delivering
an effective strategy. To date the advanced disclosure of funding
has often been short term and even misleading. It is also unrealistic
for partners to absorb financial commitments into core funding
when faced with the cessation of funding from central or national
government.
The need for dedicated staff to support the
development, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the
partnership's strategies and action plans is fundamental. With
the ever-increasing levels of expectation and funding, partnership
working is now a full-time operation. Short-term funding to establish
posts has assisted the partnership but the current position that
posts will shortly have to be absorbed into mainstream funding
does not take into account the realities of local government and
the local health services. The presumption that savings made elsewhere,
due to partnership successes, will subsequently be allocated to
support these posts is a utopian vision, particularly in the light
of budgetary restraints imposed at national and local level.
It would be churlish to over-criticise the partnership
process and it is better to view the partnerships as developing
entities, but as such they require nurturing and support. The
work of the partnership has expanded greatly in the six years
since the Crime and Disorder Act and this has been accompanied
by a frenzy of competing objectives and outcomes. Would it be
better to give every partnership one outcome, that is the reduction
of the fear of crime, and allow flexibility to each partnership
in attaining this in their locality? This may mean a departure
from national priorities in favour of local priorities, but will
meet the needs of the community.
Key considerations for the centre are:
— Operating gateway systems to regulate
bureaucracy of reporting, funding streams (budget pooling) and
communications;
— Shifting to medium-term financial
planning to allow longer-term allocation of funds in line with
statutory organisations-budget frameworks;
— Adopting Key Performance Indicators
(outcome and action focused) so that if targets are met, partnerships
could earn autonomy on budget management and allocation;
— Working between ODPM and HO to ensure
policy consistency and linkages between policing plans, community
strategies and community safety strategies;
— Piloting of alternative community
safety models (trusts, mutuals, public interest companies, social
enterprises) to provide partnerships and statutory organisations
with more flexible models of delivery;
— Triangulating the Assembly function,
HO and CSPs in Wales, to avoid duplication or overlapping on initiatives;
— Developing greater vertical integration
between central policy guidance and legislation and local community
safety strategies.
Andrew Mason
Gwent Police
Derek Nash
Monmouthshire County Council
John Palmer
Monmouthshire County Council
26 November 2004
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