Crime Reduction Programme
Investing to deliver: reviewing the implementation of the UK Crime Reduction Programme
This report discusses findings from a review of the processes through which the Crime Reduction Programme (CRP) was implemented. The key lessons detailed should prove invaluable in enhancing the implementation of similar initiatives in the future.
Title: Investing to deliver: reviewing the implementation of the UK Crime Reduction Programme
Author: Peter Homel, Sandra Nutley, Barry Webb and Nick Tilley
Series: Home Office Research Study 281
Date published: January 2005
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Background
The Crime Reduction Programme had 3 goals.
1. To achieve a sustained reduction in crime.
2. To improve and mainstream knowledge of best practice.
3. To maximise the implementation of cost-effective crime reduction activity.
To achieve these, the CRP worked through an array of 20 separate but linked crime reduction initiatives of varying scale. These were to be primarily delivered at the local level through Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships (CDRP).
The review
The review addressed 3 questions:
1. If the CRP was about the further development of a crime reduction evidence base, to what extent has this evidence base been applied and extended?
The CRP made extensive use of evidence available from the Reducing Burglary Initiative, the Targeted Policing Initiative and the Offender Management Programme. However, projects with less direct involvement with the CRP tended to be less evidence-based. The lessons learned from this initiative will also be valuable in extending the evidence base, although not as valuable and as extensive as originally hoped.
2. If the CRP was supposed to stimulate innovation – has it done so and how?
The focus on innovation all but disappeared from the programme within 12 months of it beginning.
3. If the CRP was about increasing crime reduction activity – has this occurred and how?
The level of crime reduction activity was well below the original expectations and projections for the CRP. Some initiatives also had high rates of implementation failure, so although crime reduction activity increased significantly, it is clear that programme delivery requires more inputs than money and good plans.
Three common findings emerged from the review of the range of sub-programmes that made up the CRP. These were:
1. Difficulties in finding, recruiting and retaining suitably qualified and skilled staff.
2. Generally inadequate technical and strategic advice and guidance from the centre and regions.
3. Inadequate levels of project management competence and skill, particularly in financial and resource management.
These in turn were related to a range of implemention problems. These include:
The tendency of the centre to operate as a 'hands-off' provider of resources, target setter, and passive monitor of progress meant there was little or no ability centrally to boost local or regional capacity.
An inadequate local supply of people with the necessary skills to develop and implement well thought-through projects. Programmes had to compete for the limited range of resources available rather than planning to cooperate and share them.
There was a general absence of leadership across all levels of the delivery process.
Ineffective ongoing programme performance monitoring. Adequate tools for basic programme performance monitoring were often not available.
Past lessons from previous crime reduction programmes were ignored and as a result many avoidable errors were reproduced.
Lack of support for translating research evidence into practice. Evidence acquired was not translated into supportive, practical on-the-ground activities.
Limited flexibility in responding to external events.
Lessons for future programmes
The review has identified 5 key lessons for improving the effective delivery of future programmes. These are:
1. Invest to deliver
An adequate development and set-up capacity and a flexible project management process is needed. The implementation process should also be constantly under review and development.
2. Organise centrally to deliver locally
The centre needs to have a more active and collaborative role to local delivery through regional management. What is recommended is a form of collaborative or "partnership" arrangement that recognises the need to share power and responsibility between all participating parties
3. Separate research and evaluation from programme delivery
Management requirements for an effective research and evaluation programme will frequently differ from those required for direct programme implementation. It is therefore recommended that the research and programme components of future crime reduction activity be separated.
4. Build and maintain a knowledge management system
An effective knowledge management is essential not only to generate new knowledge but also to spread usable knowledge about cost-effective practices. A further requirement is to develop management information systems to monitor programmes activity and promote learning. It will also help retain staff knowledge in case they leave.
5. Create flexible fund management models
Traditional fund management and budgeting models are inadequate. Alternative approaches need to be developed and implemented that focus on linking inputs to outputs and programme activity, together with techniques for measuring and assessing multi-agency initiatives.
How to take forward these 5 lessons
Create a proactive and adequately informed centre willing and able to participate directly in partnership and technical support arrangements at the regional and local level.
Encourage close cooperation between central, regional and local staff to forge effective, collaborative ways of working.
Develop human resource recruitment and staff development strategies to accompany programme implementation plans.
Promote the routine application of a 'logic model' for developing and managing programmes overall as well as their constituent sub-programmes and projects.
Develop, implement and use a working knowledge management system and good practice tools to aid programme implementation.
Develop an applied risk management approach to programme development and implementation at the central, regional and local levels.
Last update: Thursday, September 28, 2006