RETAIL & BUSINESS CRIME
ACTION AGAINST BUSINESS CRIME GROUP
The Action Against Business Crime Group is a joint venture between the Home Office and the British Retail Consortium to boost the work of local business crime partnerships. This forms part of a wider strategy to tackle business crime announced by Hazel Blears on 13th August 2003, with the Home Office granting £959,000 to fund the Action Group since its inception in April 2004.
The main focus of the new Action Group is to support and develop business crime partnerships in local areas, and to create links between business, Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships, and other relevant community groups. The aim was to establish 100 new partnerships in towns and cities across England and Wales by March 2006.This has now been achieved.
The Home Office has just granted the Action Group a further £180,000 to set up a further 20 partnerships and to maintain the existing ones. From April 2007 the Action Group will become self-financing.
The Action Group acts as a National Association for Business Crime Reduction Partnerships. It has also developed an accreditation scheme that clearly sets outs the standards and objectives that business crime partnerships need to work towards to reduce business related crime in their local areas.
Business Crime Reduction Partnerships bring retailers and businesses together with police and local authority representatives to exchange information on known offenders. Many partnerships have set up radio link schemes between retailers and businesses as well as the sharing of crime prevention advice. The Action Group aims to ensure that the partnerships encompass all local businesses including retailers, transport and the night time economy. The National Association helps to ensure that crime issues affecting business in local areas are well understood and encourages the sharing of best practice in reducing crime. This benefits large and small businesses alike and will have a real impact on the ground in reducing crime in towns and shopping centres.
Last update: Thursday, January 18, 2007