Minimum Standards

Police and Justice Act 2006 (PJA 2006) 

The Government implementation of the Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnership (CDRP) Reform programme will be staged over a 12 month period. This involves the implementation of new legislation and statutory national standards - representing a significant change in the way that central government works with CDRP's/CSP's and how they work at a strategic, tactical and operational level. 

As a major part of this reform the Police and Justice Act 2006 has comprehensively revised the founding legislation (Crime and Disorder Act 1998) to the Partnerships “.....the most effective possible vehicle for tackling crime, anti-social behaviour and substance misuse in their communities”.

The PJA 2006 places a new duty on CDRPs to join together in a formal strategic group to undertake frequent strategic assessments of levels and patterns of crime and drug misuse in their area and to produce annual rolling three year community safety plans.

Statutory Standards

The details of these new Minimum Standards are contained in Statutory Instrument 1830:

 SI 2007/1830 and SI 2007/1830 - Explanatory Memorandum 

which came into force on 1 August 2007.

The provision of information to undertake the strategic assessments are covered in Statutory Instrument 1831

SI 2007/183 and SI 2007/1831 - Explanatory Memorandum.

The Act also provides for the local authority scrutiny of the CDRPs activities (but the implementation of these may be delayed subject to the current Policing Review's development and findings.

Key Areas for Minimum Standards of Operation

1.  Partnerships will be required to produce an annual three year rolling plan/strategy. The current Crime, Disorder and Combating Drug Misuse Strategies will come to an end on 31 March 2008 and by that time the new form annual rolling strategy and community safety plan will need to be in place (see SI 1830 below).

2.  A duty is placed on named agencies to share aggregate, depersonalised data, when doing so is in the interests of preventing crime, disorder and substance misuse (the CDA 1998 only provides a power to share the data).

3.  CDRP agencies are required to mainstream anti-social behaviour reduction and substance misuse, as well as crime and disorder (of which they are already obliged to take account).

4   A new government power to define national standards for partnership working; with which the CDRP's will be required to comply. These standards, to be will be issued in Summer 2007; with accompanying detailed guidance in the following area’s:

§       Empowerment and Effective Leadership: to ensure that there is the right level of representation and involvement across CDRP’s

§       Intelligence Led Business Processes: to ensure that decision making is based upon good and up to date information

§       Effective and Responsive Delivery Structures: to enable partnerships to respond quickly and effectively to the needs of their communities on community safety

§       Community Engagement: to ensure that local people are informed, consulted and involved

§       Visible and Constructive Accountability: to make CDRP’s and their decisions accountable to local people

§       Appropriate Knowledge and Skills: to consider the skills and knowledge that are required to meet objectives identified in plan

5.   Extend the powers of local authority scrutiny committees to include scrutiny of CDRPs and provide a mechanism to enable communities to get community safety problems prioritised. This may be introduced in April 20081.

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 Key Standards Links