Audits & Strategies Toolkit
Who should be involved in audits and strategies?
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Who should be involved in audits and strategies?
This part of the toolkit explains who should be involved in the audit and strategy process and where you can get more information about assessing the audit and strategy process..
The Crime and Disorder Act 1998, amended by the Police Reform Act 2002, makes it clear that the duty to carry out audits and develop strategies to tackle crime and disorder (including anti-social behaviour) and the misuse of drugs (substance misuse in Wales) rests with:
Responsible authorities should undertake these duties in partnership with:
This part of the toolkit also provides more information about: assessing the audit and strategy process
Responsible authorities
What is a responsible authority?
Section 5 (1) Act defines responsible authorities for each local government area as:
the council for that area and, where the area is a district and the council is not a unitary authority, the council for the county, which includes the district (eg in two-tier authorities) both district and county councils are responsible
every chief officer of police where any part of their police area lies within the local government area
every police authority where any part of their police area lies within the local government area
every fire authority where any part of their area lies within the local government area
in Wales, every health authority where the whole or any part of their area lies within the local government area
in England, every Primary Care Trust where the whole or any part of their area lies within the local government area (subject to commencement order). The Home Office & The Department of Health have recently published Guidance for Partnerships and Primary Care Trusts
PDF 155Kb.
Section 5 (4) of the Act defines local government area as:
in England - each district or London borough, the City of London, the Isle of Wight and the Isles of Scilly
in Wales - each county or county borough
The role of responsible authorities
For audits, the role of responsible authorities is to:
review levels and patterns of crime and disorder (including anti-social behaviour) and misuse of drugs (substance abuse in Wales), taking into account the knowledge and experience of persons in the area
act in association with co-operating bodies
invite the participation of invitees to participate
prepare an analysis of the results of the review
publish a report of the analysis locally
obtain the views of the public on the report
For strategies, the role of responsible authorities is to:
develop a strategy taking into account the analysis and responses to it, setting out agreed objectives of responsible authorities, co-operating bodies and invitees to participate and short and long term performance targets
publish a document that must include details of the co-operating bodies, details of the review, analysis of the results of the review, the strategy (including the objectives) and who is responsible for achieving the objectives and the performance targets
submit copies of their strategies and published documents and an annual report on the implementation of their published strategies during the preceding 12 months to the Secretary of State. This is required under Section 6A of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998. Further guidance on the content and timing of the annual report will be published soon.
Division of responsibilities
Home Office guidance (November 2003) defined the criteria for the integration of Drug Action Teams (DATs) and Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships (CDRPs) in unitary authorities and closer working of partnerships in two-tier systems.
The structure of partnerships and the boundaries within which they operate affect the division of responsibility for crime and disorder and drugs audits, strategies and reports:
Unitary/metropolitan authorities
DATs and CDRPs should operate as a single partnership. These integrated partnerships are responsible for producing crime and disorder and drugs audits, strategies and reports. The partnerships are free to decide whether to produce combined or separate documents - if separate, these documents must be cross-referenced and complementary.Two tier authorities
County level strategic planning of the drug strategy is critical. It is recommended that partnerships adopt one of the approaches described below, both of which ensure that strategic planning of the drug strategy takes place at county level while allowing responsible authorities to meet their statutory responsibilities at district level. The 2 options are:
- DATs and CDRPs work together to produce countywide crime and disorder and drugs audits, strategies and reports. These must be agreed by all CDRPs and be comprehensive in their coverage of crime and disorder and drugs issues in each CDRP area. Each CDRP must still publish and consult locally on the joint audit and publish the joint strategy locally (a requirement of the legislation). Partnerships will be free to decide whether to produce combined crime and disorder and drugs audits, strategies and reports or separate documents (e.g. one audit document covering crime and disorder and a separate audit document covering drugs) - if separate, these documents must be cross-referenced and complementary
- Each CDRP produces individual crime and disorder and drugs audits, strategies and reports for their local area. CDRPs are expected to agree the drugs element of these documents with the county DAT to ensure consistency with the countywide audit, strategy and report produced by the DAT.
Note: The Crime and Disorder Act 1998 (as amended) places statutory requirements on responsible authorities operating at district level. District level CDRPs need to address the impact of drugs misuse on their local communities but this does not detract from the importance of county-level strategic planning of the drug strategy. As a result, DATs in two-tier authorities are expected to produce countywide drugs audits, strategies and reports. This ensures unitary and two-tier authorities have consistent approaches to auditing, planning and reporting within the revised framework for local delivery of the drugs strategy.
Co-operating bodies
What is a co-operating body?
Section 5 (2) of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 states that responsible authorities must act in co-operation with every probation board, any part of whose area lies within the area.
The Secretary of State also requires responsible authorities to work in co-operation with the following in each local government area:
Parish Councils (England)
Community Councils (Wales)
NHS Trusts
Schools' governing bodies
Independent schools' proprietors
Further education governing bodies
The role of co-operating bodies
Co-operating bodies represent local groups or agencies who can provide a significant contribution to tackling crime and disorder and drugs misuse in the local area.
The Crime and Disorder Act 1998 requires objectives to be set for the co-operating bodies and other contracted agencies when strategies are developed. Therefore, co-operating bodies must:
play a key part in both the audit and strategy development process
be important partners in the implementation and on going development of the strategy
The Act also places a legal obligation on co-operating bodies to:
co-operate fully in the work of the auditing and strategy setting process
help deliver the objectives set out in the crime and disorder and drugs strategy
Co-operating bodies should be able to provide data or information to improve the understanding of local crime and disorder and misuse of drugs problems and contribute to the benefit of the local community as well as benefiting the core functions of their respective agencies.
These bodies should be able to bring the benefit of their knowledge and expertise and details of their ability to help support partnerships’ initiatives through early interventions either as part of their core work or by working together with other constituent partnership agencies.
Partnerships must understand the role and requirements of these other agencies and identify what they can contribute in terms of information, resources and ideas. You should also help them to understand what benefits they can reap from partnership working in terms of their own work and core functions.
Invitees to participate
Who are invitees to participate?
Invitees to participate represent a range of local groups and organisations that are involved and engaged in their local community.
Section 5 (3) of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 includes a list of invitees to participate. This list is not exhaustive and you must make every effort to encourage local groups and communities to be actively involved in the audit and strategy process. The list includes:
Social landlords
Drug Action Teams / Drugs and Alcohol Teams
Training and Enterprise Councils
Youth Voluntary Organisations
Crown Prosecution Service
Crown Court Managers
Magistrates Court Committees
Neighbourhood Watch committees
Victim Support Service members
Service Police
Ministry of Defence Police
British Transport Police
Public transport/School transport providers and operators
Passenger Transport Executives and Passenger Transport Authorities are subject to commencement order that came into force on 23 February 2004
Bodies providing services to women, young, elderly, physically and mentally disabled
Bodies providing services to minority ethnic groups, gay and lesbian groups
Bodies providing services to residents
Religious bodies
Companies
Retail bodies
Trade unions
Medical practitioners
Bodies representing medical practitioners
Higher education governing bodies
Many of these groups gather large amounts of information in their day-to-day activities and can help to provide a fuller understanding of the causes of crime and/or misuse of drugs in the local community. They can be particularly helpful in areas where there is a lack of information on the extent of drug related harms in the area.
You should also consider working with agencies that can give you a fuller picture of particular geographic areas or specific minority groups.
Involving invitees must be a core aspect of the audit and strategy process. Their local knowledge of dealing with victims and perpetrators is invaluable in understanding the problem, considering how to find solutions and implementing and monitoring initiatives.
You may also want to involve in other agencies in your audit including:
Treatment agencies
Accident and emergency departments
Voluntary agencies
Partnerships should also:
consider how to involve victims and witnesses in the audit and strategy process
be aware of, and make the appropriate links to, the work of Local Criminal Justice Boards.
The Victims and Witnesses National Strategy (July 2003) sets out how the Government plans to make sure that victims and witnesses get a better deal from the Criminal Justice System. Recommendations in the strategy were taken forward in the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Bill 2003. Partnerships should also be aware of the National Strategy for Restorative Justice (July 2003), which highlights the role that restorative justice can have in increasing the satisfaction and confidence of victims.
Assessing the audit and strategy process
There is a framework for partnerships to use to assess their own working practices in undertaking crime and disorder and drugs audits and developing and implementing their strategies in Section 2 of the Home Office Self-Assessment Framework for CDRPs and DATs
Last update: Wednesday, September 06, 2006