Crime Reduction - Helping to Reduce Crime in Your Area

Ali

Welcome to the latest expert chat on www.crimereduction.homeoffice.gov.uk. The session will start at 12 o'clock.

Chaz Akoshile

Welcome everyone. We have some experts on the panel this afternoon. They will introduce themselves and welcome your questions to get the session started.

Katy Follows

Hi, I’m Katy Follows from Nottingham Crime and Drugs Partnership. I have been co-ordinating Nottingham City’s ‘Weeks of Action’ since August 2006.

Ali Hewison

Hello all - thanks for joining the chat. I’m Ali from the Home Office and have been working at PPSU in co-ordinating the delivery of PSA1 across the 44. If there are any questions on Priority 44 processes I am very happy to answer them

Verity Ridgman

Hello, I’m Verity Ridgman, a Performance Support Manager in the Police and Partnership Standards Unit. I work with Government Office North West to support partnerships.

Alison Doherty

Hello. I am Alison Doherty. I’m a Group Manager from Liverpool City Council responsible for strategic partnership development (CDRP and the wider Safer & Stronger Communities). This has recently included the introduction of Respect Weeks of Action in Liverpool with partnership colleagues.

tracyharsley

Afternoon everyone, I am Tracy Harsley, Head of Hull Citysafe, areas of current interest include various measures to roll out a consistent approach to Common Tasking, Consultation and Engagement.

Alison Doherty

Hi Ali, could you tell us something about the impact of the Priority 44 processes?

Ali Hewison

So far the work with the Priority 44 has been very positive. The figures from Home Office informal monitoring has shown that all partnerships are now beginning to show a reduction in crime. In some areas such as Nottingham, Hull and Liverpool huge gains have been made. Alison, Katy and Tracy are here to share their experiences with us so we can learn more about what they have done. What do you think has been positive about the Priority 44 process?

Katy Follows

Nottingham are currently on target to achieve a 26% reduction in crime by March 2008. This has been greatly helped by much improved partnership working including joint tasking between all agencies at operational and strategic levels and also the Weeks of Action.

Alison Doherty

Liverpool is performing well and is on target to reduce PSA1 by 22.7% by March 08. The PSA focus has been helpful - as has been the introduction of models of good practice such as the Weeks of Action and the neighbourhood / community focus.

Ali Hewison

From the Home Office’s point of view the focus and drive on the Priority 44 will continue until March 2008 as there is still an opportunity to influence BCS data. Much of the work that has been achieved in the Priority 44 should help bring partners together in choosing the best fit of LAA indicators to reflect their shared priorities. Although new PSAs will come into action after March it is hoped that much of the work that has been achieved will be mainstreamed and improve partnership working overall.

tracyharsley

Hi Alison, will you be continuing your action weeks into next year? We have found that the community and residents really like them so are looking to provide greater flexibility in them and keep them running.

Alison Doherty

Yes. We intend to continue - depending on availability of resources next year! Like you, we have strengthened and enhanced community engagement and partnership working through these Respect Weeks of Action.

Katy Follows

Alison and Tracey, we’re continuing our Weeks of Action until March 2008 co-ordinated from the CDP. There is some debate in Nottingham as to whether it should continue to be led by the CDP or by Neighbourhood Management - what is the situation in your areas?

Alison Doherty

Katy, The Neighbourhood Management Service has been critical to the success of our programme of Respect Weeks of Action. The NMs act as the key focal point for the week, chairing meetings and ensuring the week involves local organisation, communities and Members and that it delivers action according to the Neighbourhood Agreement for the area to ensure sustainability and embedding of the approach. We have supported the NMs e.g. supplying intelligence, finances etc. NMs are now starting to hold mini Respect Weeks of Action focused on SSC block.

Verity Ridgman

How have people managed to include enforcement in their Weeks of Action given that they also need to consult and involve the community?

Katy Follows

Enforcement is one of the key aspects of our Weeks of Action, along with crime prevention and community safety etc. We’ve found that in particular problem areas of Nottingham the wider community have really appreciated the focus on enforcement, especially if that focus is on key problem individuals or families. The enforcement needs to be balanced out by making sure that the week also deals with the priorities of the community such as litter or low-level asb and also celebrates what is positive about the area.

tracyharsley

In Hull we have included enforcement as part of our activity and this has worked well, with the seconded officers in citysafe responsible for this working with warrants and the courts. Our target was 30% but this month has seen us hit a 32% reduction. Being part of the Priority 44 has actually leant more weight to delivery of services and focus in the city.

Alison Doherty

Hi Verity, early on there were some concerns about linking `harder’ enforcement activities with `softer’ actions linked to, for example, employment. However, through the main planning meetings officers were able to create a balanced calendar of events that gave confidence to staff and communities. Planning is key!

Ali Hewison

From what we have learned many partnerships have managed to combine the two approaches through carefully planning Weeks of Action, but equally some CDRPs have chosen to do a Week of Action focussed on enforcement and then follow up with a Week of Action focused on softer issues such as environment. All in all Weeks of Action should be tailored to the needs of the area.

Kathy

Which partners were the most difficult to engage?

Ali Hewison

In my experience of talking to partnerships I have heard that health can be difficult to engage in crime reduction work - does anyone have any advice on engaging in Weeks of Action and crime reduction overall?

Alison Doherty

Health have found it hard to engage in crime reduction activities. However, Health have been really helpful with the Weeks of Action. They do need plenty of notice to effectively plan though. At first we only gave 2 weeks notice to the WOA but we found giving them a draft programme of Weeks of Action for the next few months has helped. Health have been massively supportive with other developments too such as the Sexual Assault Referral Centre and work to tackle domestic and racial violence.

Katy Follows

Nottingham now has Health Action Officers based in Neighbourhood Management Teams and they have been a very useful route into the PCT. Before these posts were in place most of the engagement was on an ad-hoc basis with Community based nurses etc.

Alison Doherty

Key learning on what works in general from us: having an executive group to scope the WOA, a good planning structure, having the Neighbourhood Manager as a lead with Community Safety support both operationally and strategically. We found using the LAA and the Respect logo brought people along and linking everything to the Neighbourhood Agreement to the area. Daily briefings during the WOA itself crucial. But most crucial of all is getting all the right partners at right level round the table!

Nobert

I’ve heard education can be a bit hit and miss also; has anyone found something that makes it more hit than miss?

Ali Hewison

Nobert, at the Home Office we have been working with DCFS to encourage schools and police to work together on Safer School Partnerships. These have been shown to improve anti social behaviour in and around schools and also improve relationships with the police.

Katy Follows

We have Education Improvement Partnerships in Nottingham which basically means there is an officer who provides a link between families of schools and the outside world! This has been a huge help in linking with schools for WOAs as individual schools are quite autonomous and can be very difficult to engage with.

Verity Ridgman

The forthcoming LAAs should be a good opportunity to engage with education. As there will be 18 mandatory education targets in LAAs, partnerships will be able to set out how they can help to support these and explore opportunities for activities that will support both agendas.

Alison Doherty

Children’s Services in Liverpool have been very supportive in Liverpool. They act as the block lead for C&YP in our Respect Weeks of Action and, indeed, they have seconded a specific officer to assist with development of youth diversionary activities etc during the Respect Weeks of Action. Safer Schools Partnership also good route in.

Alison Doherty

I should add that BEST teams and police officers in schools have been very effective in promoting CDRP priorities. Robbie the Bobbie is famous! Also, Social Inclusion Teams and the Ethnic Minority and Travellers Achievement Service have been instrumental in developing a wide range of community cohesion work with Newcomers in Liverpool.

Nobert

Who or what is Robbie the Bobbie?

Alison Doherty

Robbie the Bobbie is one of our seconded police officers working in local schools. During the last week of action Robby visited all schools within the Neigh in order to engage with children. He offered advice and guidance to students on issues such as not becoming involved in gang related crime / ASB. He also held after school football coaching session, cycling proficiency classes and organised and held a Disco. In total Robby made contact with over 1750 children during the last Week of Action. He is a legend in his own lifetime - and is very well respected by c&yp and local communities.

Annie May

Has anyone tried to run Weeks of Action across two (or more!) partnerships? If so, how did it work?

Alison Doherty

Hi Annie May, in Liverpool we have taken the approach of involving all of the Local Strategic Partnership’s Strategic Issue Based Groups in the Local Area Agreement (LAA) in our Weeks of Action. Therefore, we have thematic leads for the Respect Weeks of Action from Liverpool First (our LSP) e.g. Liverpool First for Health, Liverpool First for Children & Young People, Liverpool First for Employment & Enterprise as well as Liverpool First for Safer & Stronger Communities(which is Citysafe - Liverpool’s CDRP and block lead for SSC).

Katy Follows

The Weeks of Action in Nottingham are co-ordinated by the CDP but address the priorities of the other themed partnerships. Agencies work together to plan the activities for a theme and plans are fed back to ensure that they are addressing both local and corporate priorities.

Annie May

No we haven’t but it was an idea I was playing with.

Alison Doherty

Annie-May, we aim to run a minimum of 10 Respect Weeks of Action by end of March 08. All of these will have outcomes for each of the Local Strategic Partnership’s Strategic Issue Based Groups.

Verity Ridgman

Is anyone planning Weeks of Action specifically to tackle Mischief Night/Halloween/Bonfire Night?

Ali Hewison

What is mischief night?!

Alison Doherty

Verity, Ali, Mischief night is more of a kind of Northern thing! It is usually the night before Halloween and it tends to involve a lot of criminal damage and noise. Yes, we are planning a host of activities to coincide with this particular time of the year. Indeed, there are 2 Respect Weeks of Action this month! Plus we have Arson reduction officers seconded to the partnership who work closely with ourselves, neighbourhood management and other partners with considerable successes.

Please click here to see the transcript from the September online expert chat on tackling anti social behaviour over the Halloween and Bonfire Night period.

Katy Follows

We’re having a WOA the week before bonfire night, and so we’re incorporating a big push on firework safety into our work with schools and other sessions with young people.

tracyharsley

In Hull we run a very successful Arson Task Force with a separate FAB - Fireworks and Bonfire Group, in addition we are doing quite a lot of work now on caravan safety as we have approx 600 families in caravans due to the flood so have also worked this into our programme

Ali Hewison

Tracy, what you saying about the flooding is interesting. Has anyone else online had experience of the floods and how has this affected crime reduction in your area?

tracyharsley

Just to respond quickly to you Ali, we have not seen an increase in crime as a result of the flooding but are concerned for the mischief period and bonfire night with so many caravans close to paths and roads. So we are improving the caravan safety but working with Fire and Rescue on this as well.

Ali Hewison

Thanks Tracy, overall the data that we have at the Home Office hasn’t identified a spike in crime following the flooding although initially there was a concern that there would be due to the sheer pressure on resources.

Rob

Students are now starting the university academic year - what measures are being put in place to tackle bicycle theft and domestic burglary? Also, are there any plans to tackle alcohol-fuelled violence in the run-up to Christmas and the New Year?

tracyharsley

We have just run our freshers week stands, and have also set up a trap property around the student areas. We run night time economy projects in the run up to Christmas which have been really popular

Katy Follows

Rob - we have an annual multi-agency operation to tackle student burglary. We work with the Police, City Council, the Universities and students unions to engage with the students at the start of the academic year and before and after each holiday to try and reinforce the message about keeping their homes secure and also being responsible neighbours! The police and volunteers from other agencies take to the streets of our student areas during the start of term and engage with them as they are moving in to their new homes (usually with their parents as well).

Verity Ridgman

Some partnerships are doing Weeks of Action specifically based round the return of students to university, targeting them for messages about looking after their property and offering property marking. This will obviously cover bicycle theft as well. Again, lots of partnerships in the relevant areas are doing TVCP activities concentrated over the three moths from October to December but including the beginning of the new Year. Part of this involves publicising as widely as possible safer drinking messages, taxi marshalling services and any specialist health services.

Katy Follows

We have an action plan to tackle cycle theft. This is being implemented across agencies - the Community Protection Officers regularly patrol cycle hot-spots and offer crime prevention advice as appropriate. All cycle shops in the City give security advice when new bikes are sold (this includes referrals to Smart water and Immobilise).

Ali Hewison

In terms of tackling cycle theft there has been a previous online chat on this topic. Click here to read the transcript.

Alison Doherty

In Liverpool we have a vibrant City centre Joint Agency Group which has undertaken a number of activities around Night-time economy and tackling alcohol related issues. City centre crime has reduced significantly since the JAG’s inception. We also hold a number of successful student safety activities. We have specific CDRP officers for tackling acquisitive crime and violent crime in the city who work closely in high crime neighs. We tend to plan activities to take into account ‘peaks’ in crime.

Katy Follows

We are trying to discourage car use in the City Centre and are working with the Health Partnership to encourage people to cycle instead. Cycling on pavements is a common complaint from residents and anyone caught doing so is referred to a voluntary sector organisation who offers free training to help people build confidence to cycle on the road. This is an alternative to a fixed penalty notice.

Ali Hewison

I have had a question in on email: How can the Priority 44 sustain the successes that have been achieved already?

Katy Follows

In my experience the key to sustaining the good work started by the Weeks of Action is engagement of the community. The most progress has been made in the areas where the community have been really engaged, and this has been where the community have really seen a difference being made.

Katy Follows

We held a Week of Action last week and we had around 100 residents express an interest in joining Neighbourhood Watch schemes. This response was really unexpected but came as a result of people seeing the impact made by all the different agencies during the week and therefore starting to believe that things can change and that they can make a difference.

Katy Follows

The challenge for us now to maintain a dialogue with these residents and to ensure that their interest isn’t lost. The new requirement for regular ‘face the people’ sessions will contribute towards this.

Alison Doherty

We can sustain the successes by continuing to do what we are doing, by continuing to work in partnership and by following CDRP reform guidance. For example, effective leadership, intelligence led delivery, effective partnership working, performance management, community engagement in neighbourhoods etc. Having tangible goals activated by tangible means such as the Respect Weeks of Action helps sustain momentum and further strengthen community engagement, partnership working and the neighbourhood focus. Keep going!

Alison Doherty

We have a Cleaner, Safer Greener grant aid programme for communities in Liverpool which is managed by the voluntary sector. This grant aid has proved very helpful in engaging local communities. Indeed, we are now holding ‘Your Community Matters’ in the 30 wards of Liverpool (voluntary sector managing this for us). This is yet another tangible way of building community capacity and working with other partners on the wider SSC agenda.

Ali Hewison

Overall the intention of Weeks of Action and the work that has taken place with the Priority 44 has been to improve partnership working, identify new partners and promote tackling crime through a problem solving approach. By developing new relationships long term reductions in crime can be made. Weeks of Action are not intended to be a silver bullet!

Verity Ridgman

It’s also important to make sure you continue to publicise the successes you are having, to build public confidence and send a very clear signal about what sort of communities people want to live in, and also build up buy-in to community participation.

Ali Hewison

Indeed, engaging the media is an important part of sustainability. The Home Office wants to help GOs and CDRPs with their media engagement and we have been working with GNN on this to produce case studies in some areas. The case studies should be available mid October and there has also been an offer from GNN to provide media training workshops at forthcoming Regional events. If you would like them to provide a workshop please speak to Adrian Tyson at the Home Office (PPSU) who is the single point of contact for Regional Events.

Chaz Akoshile

Does anyone have any thoughts about how partnerships can share good ideas and effective working?

Alison Doherty

Chaz, in Liverpool we have found it really useful to get out and about and to meet with other partnerships in person and to host partnership visits to Liverpool in return. Websites are useful too e.g. Home Office website, Idea website. Regional events are useful too. Our own website is www.liverpool.gov.uk/citysafe. This on-line discussion is a good idea too.

Katy Follows

All our areas of work and current developments can be found on our website http://www.nottinghamcdp.com/

Nobert

Is there a place we can go to find out how best to set up a Week of Action, or what works in general?

Ali Hewison

We have worked to facilitate effective practice through the Delivering PSA1 mini site on the crime reduction website. There is a Weeks of Action guidance including case studies from many areas and an FAQ. We are always keen to receive case studies from CDRPs on the work that they have done so as to improve the Guidance and we hope to include these in the Effective Practice Database

Ali Hewison

The Weeks of Action Guidance can be found here: http://www.crimereduction.gov.uk/psa1/weeksofaction002.htm

Nobert

When is the next chat planned and what is the topic?

Ali Hewison

Norbert the next chat is 09/10/07. Link between alcohol and increase in domestic abuse over the festive season. This will be very relevant in terms of action planning and fending off any seasonal spikes in crime.

Chaz Akoshile

As we enter the last two minutes of the chat it only remains to thank the panel members for their answers and to thank everyone else for coming.

Chaz Akoshile

Please remember to check back at the crime reduction website in the next few days where we will be posting a transcript of this session.

Chaz Akoshile

We will also be circulating details of this chat via the Priority 44 newsletter which will be distributed later this week.

Ali Hewison

Thanks to everyone who took part. I hope that you will join in for the following online chat next week.