Community Safety Partnership Reform

Community Safety Partnerships (CSPs)

The first CSP reform programme came almost a decade after seminal legislation (Crime and Disorder Act 1998) created these innovative partnerships in England and Wales. They were created to reduce crime and anti social behaviour in local areas through the application of an agreed partnership strategy.Thist reform programme was introduced in the last years of the Labour government (from 2006) and was intended to establish a range of minimum standards for local partnership working to reduce crime and disorder and to ensure a more transparent and community based approach to crime and disorder reduction.

We now appear to be entering a new era of reform where the minimum standards approach will at least take a backseat as CSPs and Local Criminal Justice Boards are encouraged to combine and where elected Police and Crime Commissioners (from 2011 in London and 2012 elsewhere) wil oversee the delivery of local crime reduction  and policing work advised and guided by a 'localism' based structure.

In a government letter sent to Community Safety Partnership Chairs on 17 December 2010, the Home Secretary and other government ministers outlined the developing policy on 'Cutting Crime Together'. In this letter they emphasised that:

"Effective partnerships play a crucial role in helping to tackle crime and reduce re-offending. Community Safety Partnerships (CSPs) will continue to be statutory and we want them to be partnerships focused on taking actions and achieving outcomes – cutting crime and reducing harm – not process and bureaucracy."

They stated that they were "...freeing partnerships from central reporting burdens and prescriptions and this provides an opportunity for you to decide how to operate more efficiently and address the issues that really matter to local people, not those set out by Whitehall. As a result CSPs and Local Criminal Justice Boards (LCJBs) now have greater freedom to work more flexibly and innovatively together. Combining CSP and LCJB arrangements, as has already been done in Gloucestershire, is one way to achieve this". 

The government is currently (2011) developing a programme of reforms which will impact upon the way in which Community Safety Partnerships delivered their programmes of crime and disorder reduction in England and Wales. That programme will be addressed in the Crime and Policing Policy page of this site.

The Coalition Government reforms are emerging and over the next two years and there will be a radical reduction in resources available to community safety partnerships. Such a reduction, combined with the proposals to give the new Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) control of the Community Safety Fund will significantly alter the way in which Community Safety Partnerships will work together to reduce crime and disorder.

There are currently (Spring 2011) around 330 CSPs in England and 22 in Wales. They work with varying degrees of success and range from loosely based confederations which encourage the development of projects to tackle crime and disorder to well financed and tightly focused management boards who direct teams to deliver specific targeted outputs.

Reinforcing CSP Governance & Effective Practice

Responsible authorities are under a statutory duty2 to ensure that the key agencies come together to work in partnership in a CDRP/CSP in co-operation with probation boards, parish councils, NHS Trusts , NHS Foundation Trusts, Proprietors of independent schools and governing bodies of an institution within the further education sector and to work closely with Drug Action Teams in two tier local authority areas and have developed integrated working arrangements in unitary authority areas.

They are also expected to invite a range of local private, voluntary, other public and community groups including the public to become involved in the development of their work. 

The governance of crime and disorder reduction partnership work has belonged with the local Crime and Disorder Partnerships (CDRP's) since the enactment of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998. Nevertheless, police and other partner authorities have continued to carry out their individual duties to maintain enforcement activities of work with those who are involved with the processes of criminal justice; sometimes linked to the CDRP activity but also separate from it.

The Police and Justice Act 2006 Reforms 

The CSP reforms contained in the Police and Justice Act 2006 (PJA 2006) have comprehensively revised the Crime and Disorder Act 1998. The Act placed a duty on responsible authorities - the Fire Service, Probation Service, Health Service, local Police Authority and a representative of Registered Social Landlords (Housing Associations) - to share evidence based data to support CDRPs. 

The PJA 2006 and related documents, were intended to break down that silo working and to install a more consistent 'joined-up' approach (revision of Section 17, scrutiny functions and more general minimum standards.  

The specific responsibilities for the development of the Strategic Assessment and its implementation are described in more detail in the minimum standards page.

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