Community Safety Governance
Community Safety Governance - local
The strategic governance of crime and disorder reduction work has belonged with the local Crime and Disorder Partnerships (CDRP's) since the implementation of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998. This has meant that the local strategic management, commissioning of the local strategic assessment of crime and disorder, the development of local delivery plans for crime and disorder reduction and the overseeing of performance against crime reduction targets has belonged with the CDRP's.
However, there is a significant regional input into the governance of CDRP's.
This is so both in the case of county CDRP's and through the CDRP membership of Police Authorities, Fire Authorities and Police Services at county and district levels and in unitary authorities.
To ensure that there was a consistent basic structure and process for each of the CDRP's, the Home Office set up the CDRP Reform process in 2005; which reviewed the structures and operations of the CDRP's. As a result of the review a set of minimum standards for CDRP's was established and included in the Police and Justice Act 2006 (PJA) and related documents. However, parallel to this work, the Department for Communties and Local Government were reviewing the mechanisms for local community governance and sponsored the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007 (Local Government and Health Act 2007). There are dignificant similarities and overlaps with the two Acts.
Key parts of the Local Government Act:
1. Provide a statutory basis for Local Area Agreements, a formal framework for co-operation in the development of LAA's with local/regional partners and a formal description of (local improvement) targets
2. Empower councillors to raise issues with overview and scrutiny committees as part of expanding Community Calls for Action to cover all local government services
3. Provide new powers for overview and scrutiny committees to review and scrutinise the actions of key local public service providers. These link to the community safety and police prioritisation of crime and disorder topics, community engagement and local accountability issues.
It is critical to link the local Police and Justice Act implementation programme with the implementation of the Local Government and Health Act. This will enable the local social and economic causes of crime and local community development to be seen as one - a whole community issue - and dealt with in a consistent way instead of within the separated silos of criminal justice or regeneration. It should avoid the anomaly of separate targets or priorities to tackle the same social issues and will strengthen the longer term reduction in crime and disorder.
Community Safety Governance - regional
The role of regional authorities in the governance of CDRP's is complex. The responsibilities vested in regional CDRP's (at county level) within two tier municipal authorities and the statutory responsibilities of Police Authorities, Fire Authorities and Police Services to work within CDRP's at all levels must mean that regional matters will significantly influence CDRP governance.
Additionally, the nature of regional statutory bodies responsibilities at the local CDRP level means that they will most likely have a specific interest in ensuring that their regional targets and objective are supported at a local level through the CDRP's - whether that be the consistent development across a region of ex prisoner resettlement services (in the case of the probation Service) or the delivery of regional crime reduction priorities in the case of the county Constabulary or the regional Police Authority.
A further element of regional influence will come from the role played by regional Government Offices in guiding CDRP's and in adjudicating on the development of Local Area Agreement and their prioritisation by Local Strategic Partnership of crime and disorder priorities originating from CDRP's systematic assessment of crime and disorder issues via their annual development of Crime and Disorder Strategic Assessments.
UK Local Government Policy Links
Web page with local government policy links, news, consulations etc from the English Local Government Association.
Web pages from the Scottish local authority community safety forum.
Northern Ireland Community Safety Unit
Web pages of the Northern Irish Community Safety Unit incldes information research, training and funding.
Wales - Community Safety - WLGA
Web page from the Welsh Local Government Association
New Public Service Agreements: Stronger communities and a better quality of life
Public Service Agreements (PSAs) 18-26 are the stronger communities and better quality of life PSA's which form part of the suite of 30 new PSA's published by the UK government in mid October 2007.
Performance Framework for Local Authorities and Local Authority Partnerships
The new national indicator for local authorities and local authority partnerships was announced as part of the Chancellor's Comprehensive Spending Review announcement on 9 October 2007.
_______________________________________________________________________________