Crime Reduction - Helping to Reduce Crime in Your Area

Building Safer Communities Fund 2005-06

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This circular should be brought to the attention of those responsible for liaison with Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnership Co-ordinators within each police force and relevant Local Government areas for their immediate action, attention and information. (Note : The expression 'relevant local government area' means, in relation to England, each district or London Borough, the City of London, the Isle of Wight and the Isles of Scilly, and, in relation to Wales, each county or county borough.) The circular should also be brought to the attention of DATs and DAT Co-ordinators in England and of Local Authority Finance Officers.

* For all references in this document to CDRPs/DATs or Partnerships, please read Community Safety Partnerships in Wales.

Dear Colleague,

1. This circular provides guidance to Partnerships responsible for tackling crime and drugs (i.e. those incorporating Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships (CDRPs) working in partnership with Drug Action Teams (DATs)) and the Police, on Year 3 of the Building Safer Communities Fund (BSC). Please note that all references in this guidance to the term "Partnerships" refer to CDRPs or, where integration with a DAT has taken place, to the newly integrated CDRP/DAT. This guidance covers the programme's objectives, the outcomes sought and the allocation of funds. The purpose is to provide guidance to partnerships in making decisions about allocation of funding and where they have already begun activity and delivery in accordance with their spending plans. This circular is also for the information of Local Authority Finance Officers, to whom the funds will be paid in the first instance. It should be read in conjunction with Home Office Circular 34/2003 and Home Office Circular 14/2004, and builds on, and supplements, the guidance provided therein.

2. From 1 April 2003, the BSC Fund combined the former Safer Communities Initiative Fund (SCI), the Communities Against Drugs programme (CAD), and the former Partnership Development Fund (PDF) into a single funding stream (the "single pot"). The fund does not, however, contain the funding made available for co-ordination of the DATs' responsibilities (the DAT Development Fund – England only), nor does it contain the fund known as CAD for DATs (England only), which is provided to assist DATs to liaise with CDRPs. These are still separately allocated to DATs, but where integration of CDRPs and DATs is considered to have taken place, strong consideration should be given to the pooling of these funds at local level to enable more efficient and combined working, provided that in doing so the funds are still directed at tackling drug related problems.

3. The BSC implements government policy on Area Based Initiatives, in that it is designed to enable CDRPs, or those new partnerships combining the functions of the CDRP and the DAT, to take a more holistic and structured approach to use of their funds in reducing crime and tackling drugs-related problems. Furthermore, it encourages Partnerships to use an intelligence-led problem-solving approach in agreeing their action plans. The amount of paperwork for Partnerships associated with producing the plan should also be much reduced so that Partnerships can focus more effort on achieving effective outcomes on crime and drugs. Partnerships are expected, in return for this streamlined and simplified system, to ensure that their agreed spending plans are submitted to the Government Offices/National Assembly in Wales by 30 April 2005 or by a date determined locally by the relevant Government Office and implemented swiftly thereafter, achieving the maximum possible impact in crime reduction generally and tackling drug problems. Where they remain separate bodies, Partnership spending plans are required to support and be directly related to the stated aims set out in the Drug Action Team's availability and communities plans, achieving the outcomes set out therein.

4. Plans will again already have begun to be devised and submitted to Government Offices for discussion. Regional Office Crime Reduction and Drugs Teams will have begun examining plans and supporting CDRPs and DATs in the preparation, development and agreement of their interventions. In turn, a number of planned activities will be a continuation of those already in place in Year 2 of the fund.

5. Many Partnerships continue to move into a new era through integration between CDRPs and DATs and the rest are developing a closer working relationship. As with years 1 and 2, the plans you will be working from for use of your BSC funding allocation will need fully to reflect the new framework of responsibilities. The plans should accord with the following principles: Partnerships will be expected to devise a problem-solving approach in developing their proposals in conjunction with crime reduction teams in the Government Offices/National Assembly for Wales, thereby aiming for local solutions to local problems.

• In devising local solutions, Crime Reduction and Drugs Teams in the regions/NAW will need to be satisfied that an appropriate level of funding has been maintained for the full range of aims previously set out in the CAD programme (strengthening communities, tackling drug-related crime, and tackling supply);

• Strategies will need to have a demonstrable link with the plans of the Local Strategic Partnership;

• In CDRPs which have yet to integrate, BSC plans need to be signed off by the local authority, the DAT and the local police Commander.

6. Partnerships can expect to be challenged about their funding plans where their drugs and crime targets are not being met. Any decisions to transfer funding from initiatives previously funded by CAD and directly addressing drug problems will need to be discussed closely, and justified, with regional teams. This will allow for local prioritisation. Consideration will be given to making automatic deductions from Partnership allocations, should key activities and deadlines not be met, in-year. Further information on this may at any stage during the financial year be made known to practitioners via the Government Offices as expenditure progresses and plans take shape.

Allocation of funds

7. The BSC is a 3-year programme of funding to Partnerships (2003-06). Funding allocations are included at Appendix B to this circular. Please note that for 2005/06, Partnerships will receive the same amounts of grant funding as they received in 2004/05. Funding is again being channelled directly to local authorities (who act as the Accountable Body for Partnerships) for their use in meeting the purposes of the fund as outlined below. The BSC Fund continues to represent a major step forward in enabling CDRPs and DATs to plan more effectively.

8. Partnerships will be encouraged to link their spending with spend from the £50million Basic Command Unit fund (BCU) and other funding streams, including the Neighbourhood Renewal Fund (NRF). The funding streams should be seen as fully complementary.

Capital/Revenue split

9. The funding allocated to each Partnership has to be divided between capital and revenue expenditure. The overall fund is divided between capital (27% of the entire fund) and revenue expenditure (73%). The allocation to each partnership will have to be divided accordingly. Partnerships have to spend their capital allocation on capital spending, whereas current expenditure may be spent on capital items or on running cost expenditure. Partnerships should also look to trade capital and revenue on the same basis between the BSC and the BCU fund in order to maximise the effectiveness of both funding streams.

What the money may be spent on

10. We expect Partnerships to spend this money to deliver outcomes that meet national and local priorities, including, both for crime and drugs, the Home Secretary's community engagement agenda. The following priorities should be afforded due attention in drawing up and agreeing plans with the Government Office/NAW. Partnerships will be expected to plan on the basis of their local needs and priorities. Alongside action on crime, action to combat drug problems should form a substantial part of any programme activity and expenditure planning in recognition that all areas have some level of drug problems. There will therefore be an expectation that Partnerships will tackle any drugs problems in their local areas. The following are in no particular order of priority:

Priorities for crime reduction spending

11. In relation to crime and disorder reduction activity : The interventions funded will vary, depending on Partnerships' strategies, on the outcomes identified and on a structured analysis of the problems. The key point is that interventions should be based on a problem-solving approach and a knowledge of what works, and should be able to demonstrate outcomes in reducing the impact of drug-related harm, and crime and disorder, on their communities. This is not an exhaustive list and funds are allocated to appropriate local projects or initiatives. The fund will remain sufficiently flexible to allow Partnerships to identify and tackle local crime reduction priorities in their area.

12. In considering priorities for spending, Partnerships should take full account of the national target for crime reduction set in Public Service Agreement 1. In deciding where funding can best be invested, Partnerships should bear the following points in mind:

13. Volume crime and other police priorities : Interventions should seek where possible to fit with the national priorities set for the police in the National Policing Plan, so that there is as little disjunction as possible between police priorities and those to which CDRPs and DATs are working. The national priorities set for the police include tackling anti-social behaviour and disorder, reducing volume, street, drug-related and violent and gun crime (in line with local and national targets), and increasing the number of offences brought to justice. Partnerships will want to consider the benefits of addressing alcohol-fuelled violence, both in tackling volume crime and in reducing anti-social behaviour.

14. Gun crime : Partnerships should consider how their funding could be used to tackle gun crime where this is a particular issue for the area. For example, Partnerships may use the funding for taking action on those who use guns as part of their turf wars on drugs supply, linked as appropriately to other programmes to tackle drug supply. Funding may also be spent on diversionary activity – perhaps working with young people on education and awareness. The need to work with the local community in building a response as active partners in tackling gun crime is paramount.

15. Partnerships should consider using their BSC funding to complement activity which seeks to get offenders into treatment through the CJS, particularly where mainstream funding has been exhausted or apportioned elsewhere. However, any such schemes should be planned closely in partnership with those developing initiatives directly for offenders dependent on drugs under the CJIP programme referred to above.

Priorities for drugs expenditure :

16. Partnerships have discretion to spend on any project which is in line with the priorities set out in the updated national drugs strategy and associated crack strategy but which also continues to disrupt drugs markets, tackles drug-related crime and strengthens communities. Appropriate uses for this funding might include:

(a) Community drugs activity such as:

• Housing work generally to manage drug problems, control anti-social behaviour and support for the provision of supported accommodation;

• Other work to tackle anti-social behaviour related to drugs, including street problems such as begging or prostitution;

• Developing parents support or residents' groups;

• Work with homeless drug users;

• Needle collection or awareness campaigns;

• Community development work, as above, to strengthen the resistance of local communities, including education and awareness, and patch based drugs workers;

(b) Action to tackle drug supply, including market mapping as well as targeted police operations;

• Only those aspects of treatment which are related to these themes, notably work with prolific or persistent offenders where offenders have a history of drug-related offending, provided that the aspects of treatment are also closely linked to the emerging Criminal Justice Interventions Programme (CJIP) for drug-using offenders. The link between proposed expenditure along these lines and drug-related crime will need to be clearly demonstrated;

• In line with the recommendations of the National Crack Strategy, spending to tackle crack problems; including community development work, communications campaigns and supported housing or employment schemes for crack users; and budgets to support management of crack houses by landlords, including legal costs. Spending in this area will be at the discretion of partnerships where local strategies have identified it as a problem.

(c) Community Engagement :

17. Regardless of which specific issues of crime and drugs are prioritised locally, it is important that there is a focus on carrying out such work through the context of community engagement. The former CAD funding placed great emphasis on the theme of community engagement and development. Its purpose was to encourage the development of strong and resilient communities that are resistant to drugs. The Building Safer Communities Fund should continue this emphasis, but widening it to include community engagement in regard to crime reduction as well. Funding should be used to facilitate community engagement in helping address both drugs and crime problems. This can include community consultation methods, but also schemes to allocate funding to the VCS at local level, opportunities for local communities to influence decision making and to encourage local community groups to be involved in delivering services which tackle drugs and crime. The Compact on Relations between Government and the Voluntary and Community Sector and HMT's Cross Cutting Review on Service Delivery by the Voluntary and Community Sector both emphasise the advantages that can be obtained from working with these organisations. Recent guidance on funding and working effectively with the VCS can be found The Compact website.

18. In addition the DFES 'Getting Better Delivery' document will prove useful. Full guidance to Partnerships on best practice on community engagement in relation to drugs, and to crime is being developed and will be available in the new financial year. Such activity will support work in achieving the new KPI in relation to community engagement and drugs announced in the new performance management framework for local partnerships.

19. This new performance management framework relates to England only and is England only guidance. However, where the KPIs in the framework relate to Home Office funding and non-devolved matters in Wales, such as crime, Community Safety Partnerships will need to adhere to this guidance. A management information system is currently being developed in Wales and Community Safety Partnerships will shortly be consulted. The Home Secretary's recent speeches and pamphlets on these themes are relevant.

(d) In relation to capacity :

20. The capacity requirements of each Partnership will differ depending on what is already in place and forthcoming demands, including implementation of strategies. Partnerships should consider the particular capacity issues raised by DAT/CDRP integration and the development of closer working relationships between partnerships. They should also consider how this funding can be linked to the DAT development funding for capacity. Partnerships need to identify what capacity should be in place to shape mainstream work and interventions funded under this programme. Partnerships will need to be mindful of the need for the co-ordination of the delivery of the drugs strategy at local level. In particular, Partnerships are required to ensure that there is adequate capacity to manage the needs of reporting and oversight of drug issues.

21. It is particularly important that decisions are not made to substantially reduce the capacity currently invested in posts to engage with communities and thus to discharge the responsibilities set out in the Home Secretary's vision of community engagement.

(e) Additional funding to help tackle anti-social behaviour

22. The ASB White Paper made clear that Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships (CDRPs) would have to have an ASB strategy as part of their crime and disorder strategy. That is being effected through statutory guidance under the Police Reform Act and will apply to the 2005 strategies for which some CDRPs are already starting audits. The "Together: Tackling Anti-Social Behaviour" Action Plan launched in October 2003, announced that funding was being made available each year for two years specifically to bolster local work to tackle anti-social behaviour. This additional funding is allocated as part of the BSC Fund for tackling crime, disorder and anti-social behaviour. The total amounts awarded are at Appendix B. Each Partnership will receive £25,000 per annum in 2004/05 and 2005/06. (Where CDRPs merge under the provisions of the Police Reform Act, this additional ASB funding will be allocated as if they were separate CDRPs so that Partnerships are not disadvantaged by merging). The £25,000 is revenue in nature and carries with it no capital requirement in the same way as the BSC Fund.

23. While Partnerships will be able to spend this funding as they wish to help them address ASB locally, it will be a condition that each partnership has a lead person clearly accountable for its work on ASB. The funding may be used to pay for the post where such a post does not already exist. That person must be able to ensure that ASB is properly reflected in the Partnership's audit, that the partnership has an ASB strategy (as part of its triennial strategy), and that the ASB strategy is effectively delivered. The person will be a point of contact for the Government Office/NAW, and for the Home Office Anti-Social Behaviour Unit.

Conditions of Grant

24. The full conditions of grant relating to the BSC are at Appendix A to this circular. This sets out the basic requirements on the local authority in terms of audit and accountability, and the conditions on which the money is assigned to CDRPs. Funding will be paid to the relevant local authority, which will act as Accountable Body for the Partnership. The money is transferred to the local authority for the specific use of the Partnership and for the designated purposes of the BSC.

Arrangements for reporting on use of the funds and audit

25. Funds will be passed to the local authority to act as Accountable Body for the Partnership. The local authority will be sent conditions of grant by the Home Office Regional Director, setting out the purposes for which the funding is given, and the conditions which need to be satisfied before it is assigned to projects. The use of the money will need to be in accordance with those purposes. The normal local audit and accountability arrangements will apply, and the district auditor will need to be assured that the money was properly assigned, according to the requirements of the conditions of grant. A further guidance note on the audit of BSC expenditure will be issued by the Home Office as soon as this is agreed.

26. Spending and accounting for the money is the responsibility of the Partnership. The Partnership will need to keep track of expenditure, so as to ensure that the money is spent appropriately according to the purposes set out in this guidance. The partnership will need to explain how the money has been spent as part of its three-yearly audit/strategy cycle.

27. Partnerships will be required to performance manage the use of the money and to make their own performance management arrangements which should not be disproportionately time-consuming or resource intensive. The objective of performance management should be to make sure that the money is being spent as the Partnership intended. Performance management should also provide a broad insight into the extent of delivery and whether the desired outcomes have been achieved. In particular, performance management should cover:

• inputs - resources and time put into projects;

• processes - how the project operates;

• outputs - what gets done (eg: capital items purchased, additional police hours provided and numbers of users seen etc);

• outcomes - whether the outputs have had an impact (eg: reductions in certain types of crime addressed by local interventions, reductions in drug- related crime, reductions in drug availability, and changes in communities' perceptions about drug abuse).

28. Partnerships will be required to put in place measures to monitor and evaluate the interventions carried out in their area. Advice on this should be sought from the appropriate Government Office/NAW crime reduction team.

29. Further information about this circular can be obtained from:

Yours sincerely

TYSON HEPPLE

Appendices

A. Building Safer Communities Fund Conditions of Grant

B. Allocations to individual Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships (CDRPs) 2005-2006

Last update: Tuesday, July 22, 2008