Building Safer Communities (BSC) Fund
Overview
What is it?
The Building Safer Communities fund was created on 1 April 2003 by combining 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”).
Copies of previous guidance on the BSC fund are available from the Home Office website
The BSC becomes the Safer and Stronger Communities Fund (SSCF)
The fund was subsumed into Safer and Stronger Communities Fund (SSCF) which was introduced for all Local Authorities in England in April 2005. The SSC Fund brought together DCLG and Home Office funding streams aimed at tackling crime, anti-social behaviour and drugs, empowering communities, and improving the condition of streets and public spaces; in particular for disadvantaged neighbourhoods where these issues often require more attention.
The first year of SSCF (2005/06) was transitional as it brought together funding streams with delivery plans already attached. The SSCF Implementation Guidance said that SSCF agreements may therefore need to be substantially reviewed for 2006 to take account of future developments.
From 1 April 2006, new resources will be available for inclusion in SSCF agreements and Local Area Agreements to support outcomes in the most disadvantaged neighbourhoods. These two new funding streams are referred to as the Neighbourhood Element and Cleaner Safer Greener Element.
For more details of the SSCF, visit the website
SSCF becomes Local Area Agreement
In 2005-06 the Government introduced the concept of the LAA grant – a single non-ring fenced grant committed annually each year to upper tier local authorities, made up of a series of once specific grant streams (including SSCF).
From April 2008 Area Based Grant (“ABG”) takes the LAA Grant concept further. ABG (which will include SSCF and the YPSMPG come April) will be allocated as a general non-ring fenced grant, but with funding committed on a three basis to provide stability and certainty for local authorities.
From April 2008-09 there will be a single performance framework for assessing the outcomes delivered by local government, alone or in partnership. That framework will comprise a set of 198 performance indicators, covering activities that central government believe are key to delivery of national priorities (i.e. PSAs and departmental strategic objectives) over the CSR07 period e.g. indicator 15 serious violent crime rate and indicator 116 proportion of children in poverty. Local authorities have to report performance against these indicators N.B the 198 indicators are not targets.
However, it is accepted that to deliver national priorities certain areas must deliver specific improvements in certain activities – where such improvement needs to be articulated in the form of a specific/hard target, rather than leaving it to the local authority to simply report performance against the relevant indicator, central and local government will agree a Local Area Agreement (“LAA”). Each LAA (150 of them all told) will comprise a suite of up to 35 activities drawn from the 198 indicator set, with a formal improvement target attached to each activity.
LAA Grant and LAAs are therefore very different animals. LAA Grant is a funding mechanism, which ceased when ABG came into effect in April 2008, whereas LAAs will form part of the new local authority performance framework. There will be no boundary for ABG, i.e. it could fund activities inside and outside the 150 LAAs.
For completeness, where local authorities work in partnership with the police, indicators in the 198 indicator set and APACS (police performance indicators) will be the same. Also, in addition to the 198 indicators and LAAs targets, local authorities will be set 17 DCSF statutory targets in respect of educational attainment and early years learning.
Visit the Local Area Agreements website
Background on BSC Fund
From 1 April 2003, the BSC 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 did not, however, contain the funding made available for co-ordination of the DATs’ responsibilities (the DAT Development Fund – England only), nor did it contain the fund known as CAD for DATs (England only), which is provided to assist DATs to liaise with CDRPs. These were separately allocated to DATs, but where integration of CDRPs and DATs had taken place, strong consideration was urged to 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.
The BSC implemented government policy on Area Based Initiatives, in that it was 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 encouraged 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 was also much reduced so that Partnerships can focus more effort on achieving effective outcomes on crime and drugs. Partnerships were expected, in return for this streamlined and simplified system, to ensure that their agreed spending plans were submitted to the Government Offices as soon as possible and implemented swiftly thereafter, achieving the maximum possible impact in crime reduction generally and tackling drug problems. Where they remained separate bodies, Partnership spending plans were 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.
Last update: Monday, September 15, 2008