Lifting the Burdens Task Force

Review of the Home Office and Youth Justice

The Lifting the Burdens Task Force has undertaken a review of the bureaucracy that exists between central and local government. It has made practical suggestions that are not just about things that should stop happening but are also about those things we can do differently in order to reduce the burden.

Title: Lifting the Burdens Task Force: Review of the Home Office and Youth Justice
Author: Lifting the Burdens Task Force
Number of pages: 22
Date published: May 2008
Availability: Download full report PDF 425Kb

Scope and background

In early 2007 changes to the architecture of Government had a significant impact on the role and functions of the Home Office. In May 2007 responsibility for the courts, prisons, probation, criminal law and sentencing were transferred to the new Ministry of Justice, leaving the Home Office to focus on policing and community safety, security and counter terrorism and immigration. Whilst all of these functions have an impact on local government it was evident from early discussions with practitioners that, in order to ensure greatest impact, the scope of the review should be limited to the core Home Office business of crime and disorder reduction and community safety.

Against this backdrop of structural change it became clear that the review was being launched in a busy landscape of related work, including the Flanagan Review of Policing, the work of the National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA) and the Louise Casey Review around involving communities in the fight against crime.

The review has also spanned the emergence of entirely new performance management frameworks for the police and local authorities as proposals for Comprehensive Area Assessment (CAA), Assessments of Policing and Community Safety (APACS) and the content of the National Indicator Set (NIS) were issued for consultation. In this regard the review has been particularly timely and compilation of a Task Force response to these new proposals has been at the core of this review.

Recommendations

Assessments of Police & Community Safety (APACS)

The Home Office should commit to not adding any new performance indicators against which local authority services will be judged. If the Home Office feels that a new national indicator is absolutely needed, this should be matched by the removal of an existing indicator on a one in one out basis.
The Home Office should ensure that Key Diagnostic Indicators are in no way used as a part of performance assessment and that any indicators included as "Place Holders" are subject to the same consultation as those included in detail in the National Indicator Set.
A representative and transparent local authority review mechanism should be established to act as gatekeepers, reviewing periodically with the Home Office the practical application of APACS and the new local performance framework, and their continued integration, to prevent burdens from creeping back into the system.
The Home Office should develop a more nuanced and local evidence based approach to negotiating LAAs and their understanding of the specific needs and priorities of different places.
The Home Office should follow through its commitment to align APACS with CAA to ensure that the overall assessment framework: - is coordinated between inspectorates - works with clear protocols - is a proportionate inspection that draws on far fewer national performance indicators and uses information already being used by local public services - has coordinated inspection activity so that multiple requests for information are avoided - focuses on outcomes considered most important for local people in local areas i.e. a shift of emphasis from national/regional performance monitoring of inflexible mandatory targets to the delivery of locally agreed targets, local area performance and assessment - uses the same 'joint assessment of the prospects for the local area' as CAA - places significant reliance on effective self-assessment - reduces overlap in inspectorate contact, information gathering and reporting (e.g. avoids multiple interviews of some key staff)
The Home Office should clearly commit to only monitor and inspect local government services through the CAA process.
The Home Office (Partnership Performance Support Unit), CLG, Government Offices and Regional Improvement and Efficiency Partnerships (RIEPs) should clarify their respective roles and responsibilities in relation to the oversight of CDRPs, their powers of support and intervention and the links with Comprehensive Area Assessment.
The Home Office and Government Offices should maintain their measured approach to the application of the new CDRP regulations in recognition of the potential burden for CDRPs in low crime areas and those with limited resources.
The Local Government Association, IDeA and the Home Office should work together to review current partnership support arrangements and develop a proposal for shifting the emphasis from central government to local government led support in line with the approach set out in the National Improvement and Efficiency Strategy, by building the capacity of the new Regional Improvement and Efficiency Partnerships. Locally led partnership support would be facilitated if the Home Office was able to share national CDRP (iQuanta) data and statistics with the LGA, IDeA and RIEPs.

Specific Grants and Funding
The Home Office must ensure that local authorities are given appropriate notification of any additional funding or any reductions in funding that may emerge in the middle of the LAA period to facilitate planning and synchronisation with the budget cycles/processes of local authorities, the police and other partners.
There should be a general presumption that any new funding streams from the Home Office to local authorities be included in the Area Based Grant unless there are clear and widely agreed reasons not to do so. This should also apply to the existing DIP fund, as well as to the police funding represented by the BCU Commander's Fund.
The Home Office and CLG should work together to find a way of restoring flexibility in the use of the Safer and Stronger Communities Fund Capital Grant, within the context of the overall LAA pot.
The Home Office should work with other Government Departments to bring clarity and early notice as to funding streams for activities, such as substance misuse by young people, to facilitate planning and synchronisation with the long term budget cycles of local authorities, the police, health and other partners.16 Review of the Home Office and Youth Justice.

Neighbourhood Management, Neighbourhood Policing and Community Engagement
The Home Office and Cabinet Office should ensure that PACT panels, Safer Neighbourhood Panels, and any new neighbourhood engagement initiatives that emerge from the Flanagan Review and the Crime and Communities Review, dovetail with local authorities' neighbourhood engagement arrangements, and are consolidated to avoid confusion of responsibilities and excessive consultation of the local public.

Youth Justice
The development of a new case management system for YOTs needs to enable both quantitative data collection and qualitative aspects of casework recording to be satisfied. The current review of YJB reporting requirements should lead to a more effectively prioritised and significantly reduced reporting system.
The YJB and Ministry of Justice should reduce the required frequency of youth justice data to an annual report, as is the case for all of Government through the National Indicator Set.
The proposals for the new Youth Justice Planning Framework must enable YOTs to demonstrate how they will achieve national objectives at a local level, whilst allowing sufficient flexibility to meet local priorities according to identified needs.
The Youth Justice Board must follow through with its commitment to develop a much more proportionate performance framework which aligns with CAA, reduces significantly the data reporting burden and which is based on a self assessment which supports local management decisions. For this to be effective, YJB and the Ministry of Justice must make a commitment not to add any new performance indicators, or programmes of inspection to this framework

Conclusion

This review has found much evidence of a growing momentum in the Home Office towards increasing local flexibility in order to allow local public services to work more effectively and closely with each other and with the local communities that they serve in order to create a safer environment for all. The alignment of performance indicators for the police and local authorities, and the pooling of some specific grants into the Area Based Grant for Local Area Agreements are testament to this. The clear vision to continue to increase community safety through a greater focus on neighbourhoods and the integration of neighbourhood management with neighbourhood policing also supports the aim of working more flexibly to meet local needs. There is very significant scope for building on these developments in the next 12 months as we move to the introduction of the Comprehensive Area Assessment and the full introduction of APACS in April 2009. The Home Office must fully support CAA as the single inspection framework for local authorities and their local partnerships and not add any new forms of inspection or assessment outside of this process. Likewise it is vital that no new indicators are added to the agreed set of 198 national indicators for local government, and that any changes to the existing set are agreed with local government through a transparent process.

In order to see through the successful development of all of these strands and for maintaining the flexibility of the new performance framework, we would reiterate the suggestion that the Home Office works with local authorities to review periodically the practical application of the new arrangements and to prevent burdens from creeping back into the system. Local authorities must also ensure that they respond effectively and efficiently to the enhanced policy framework before them.

Response to Lifting the Burden Task Force Review

Minister's letter

Download Vernon Coaker's letter introducing the Home Office response PDF 305Kb

Home Office Response

Download Home Office response Word 55Kb

Recommendation	Government Response
1. The Home Office should commit to not adding any new performance indicators against which local authority services will be judged. If the Home Office feels that a new national indicator is absolutely needed, this should be matched by the removal of an existing indicator on a one in one out basis.	Accept in principle. The Home Office has worked with stakeholders, in particular the Department of Communities and Local Government (CLG), to ensure that Assessments of Policing and Community Safety (APACS) indicators which relate to local government in England are also included in the National Indicator Set (NIS) for local authorities and local authority partnerships. The Home Office cannot commit to the one in one out system for the NIS because flexibility to respond to new and emerging national priorities is important, but is committed to reducing burdens on local authorities and their partners (and has already removed two indicators – NI24 and NI25 – from the NIS).
2. The Home Office should ensure that Key Diagnostic Indicators are in no way used as a part of performance assessment and that any indicators included as "Place Holders" are subject to the same consultation as those included in detail in the NIS.	Accept. The Home Office has consulted on relevant place holder indicators through CLG’s consultation on National Indicators for Local Authorities and Local Authority Partnerships: Consultation on the deferred indicators (September 2008).
3. A representative and transparent local authority review mechanism should be established to act as gatekeepers, reviewing periodically with the Home Office the practical application of APACS and the new local performance framework, and their continued integration, to prevent burdens from creeping back into the system.	Accept. The Home Office agrees that a system for preventing burdens from creeping back into the system is important and would welcome further discussions on the best way to implement this. In addition the Local Government Association (LGA) and CLG are both already members of the APACS Steering Group.
4. The Home Office should develop a more nuanced and local evidence based approach to negotiating Local Area Agreements (LAAs) and their understanding of the specific needs and priorities of different places.	The Home Office has received feedback from local government stakeholders praising our excellent approach to LAAs, highlighting Home Office willingness to participate in the process and our constructive approach to challenge.
5. The Home Office should follow through its commitment to align APACS with the Comprehensive Area Assessment (CAA) to ensure that the overall assessment framework: is coordinated between inspectorates works with clear protocols is a proportionate inspection that draws on far fewer national performance indicators and uses information already being used by local public services has coordinated inspection activity so that multiple requests for information are avoided focuses on outcomes considered most important for local people in local areas i.e. a shift of emphasis from national/regional performance monitoring of inflexible mandatory targets to the delivery of locally agreed targets, local area performance and assessment uses the same 'joint assessment of the prospects for the local area' as CAA places significant reliance on effective self-assessment reduces overlap in inspectorate contact, information gathering and reporting (e.g. avoids multiple interviews of some key staff).	Accept in principle. The CAA and APACS are still in development, so it is not currently possible to commit to specifics, but every effort will be made to ensure that this recommendation is met.
6. The Home Office should clearly commit to only monitor and inspect local government services through the CAA process.	Accept. Although, as per the Local Government White Paper, the Youth Justice Board will maintain its performance management role in relation to Youth Offending Teams.
7. The Home Office (Partnership Performance Support Unit), CLG, Government Offices (GOs) and Regional Improvement and Efficiency Partnerships (RIEPs) should clarify their respective roles and responsibilities in relation to the oversight of Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships, (CDRPs) their powers of support and intervention and the links with CAA.	Accept. The Home Office contributed to the development of Roles and responsibilities in the local performance framework (July 2008) which provides an overview of what councils, Local Strategic Partnerships, GOs, Inspectorates and central government departments will be doing to implement the new local performance framework following the sign-off of LAAs in June 2008.
8. The Home Office and Government Offices should maintain their measured approach to the application of the new CDRP regulations in recognition of the potential burden for CDRPs in low crime areas and those with limited resources.	Accept.
9. The Local Government Association (LGA), Improvement and Development Agency (IDeA) and the Home Office should work together to review current partnership support arrangements and develop a proposal for shifting the emphasis from central government to local government led support in line with the approach set out in the National Improvement and Efficiency Strategy, by building the capacity of the new RIEPs. Locally led partnership support would be facilitated if the Home Office was able to share national CDRP (iQuanta) data and statistics with the Local Government Association (LGA), IDeA and RIEPs.	Accept. The Home Office and Ministry of Justice, working with the LGA and the IDeA have established two pilots with RIEPs to test ways of helping to increase their capacity and capability to provide performance support on public protection outcomes. We do give access to local iQuanta information on request to members of other government departments and CDRPs who are involved in community safety, and the Audit Commission. We are currently working with the Audit Commission to determine how iQuanta can be used in CAA. In accordance with protocols on National Statistics, the Home Office is not, however, able to share national iQuanta data with the LGA, IDeA or RIEPs. Unpublished national data based on National Statistics cannot be shared with anyone outside the Home Office.
10. The Home Office must ensure that local authorities are given appropriate notification of any additional funding or any reductions in funding that may emerge in the middle of the LAA period to facilitate planning and synchronisation with the budget cycles/processes of local authorities, the police and other partners.	Accept. The Home Office will endeavour to provide local authorities with appropriate notification of any changes in funding provision that occur in the middle of an LAA period.
11. There should be a general presumption that any new funding streams from the Home Office to local authorities be included in the Area Based Grant (ABG) unless there are clear and widely agreed reasons not to do so. This should also apply to the existing Drug Intervention Programme (DIP) fund, as well as to the police funding represented by the Basic Command Unit (BCU) Commander's Fund.	Accept in part. The Home Office always considers whether grant funding should be included within the ABG prior to the grant being determined. However, there will continue to be some limited circumstances where this may not be possible such as in circumstances where funding allocations are difficult to predict and therefore are uncertain (e.g. grants which are demand-led, bid-based or performance based) or where funding continues to be ring-fenced in exceptional cases where there is a recognised need to direct resources to specific purposes. The Home Office will not be in a position to include DIP funding into ABGs from April 2009. We are still conducting a review into mainstreaming DIP to determine the most appropriate funding route. The Policing Green Paper proposes to use the resources in the BCU Fund to form a new Community Safety Fund. It is proposed that this funding is held by police authorities and is used to address locally identified priorities. This means it might be spent on policing (e.g. extra patrolling) but equally, depending on local priorities, it might be spent on non-policing services such as additional youth workers or graffiti cleaning.
12. The Home Office and CLG should work together to find a way of restoring flexibility in the use of the Safer and Stronger Communities Fund (SSCF) Capital Grant, within the context of the overall LAA pot.	Do not accept. Under the LAA grant it was previously possible to ‘trade’ capital for revenue funding as long as the overall proportion of capital and revenue was maintained. Changing the proportions of capital and revenue spend would break Treasury (HMT) fiscal rules. The LAA grant no longer exists. The revenue element of the SSCF is now included in the ABG which is a general non-ringfenced revenue only grant. The capital element of the SSCF is now included in the Single Capital Pot which is a non-ringfenced capital only grant. The ABG and the Single Capital Pot therefore provide local areas with maximum flexibility to decide how capital funding and revenue funding is spent without altering the proportions of spending on each. Changing the proportions would break HMT fiscal rules.
13. The Home Office should work with other government departments to bring clarity and early notice as to funding streams for activities, such as substance misuse by young people, to facilitate planning and synchronisation with the long term budget cycles of local authorities, the police, health and other partners.	Accept. The Home Office does provide grant settlement confirmation based on the full Comprehensive Spending Review period (up to 3 years), and will continue to improve links to facilitate improved cross departmental working.
14. The Home Office and Cabinet Office should ensure that Partners And Communities Together (PACT) panels, Safer Neighbourhood Panels, and any new neighbourhood engagement initiatives that emerge from the Flanagan Review and the Crime and Communities Review, dovetail with local authorities' neighbourhood engagement arrangements, and are consolidated to avoid confusion of responsibilities and excessive consultation of the local public.	Accept. The Home Office is committed to providing a unified ‘face’ to the public, by better integrating services at a local level to meet their needs and expectations. The Policing Green Paper endorses Louise Casey’s recommendation in Engaging Communities in Fighting Crime that the police and local government need to co-ordinate their efforts by “…bringing together local policing with the broad range of local services – provided by local councils, housing associations and others, that contribute to community safety by tackling crime and anti-social behaviour”. The Home Office and CLG – together with the Association of Police Officers, LGA, and the Association of Police Authorities have agreed to make this integration happen by supporting local areas through the National Policing Improvement Agency and IDeA. Work will start this year and will involve identifying and promoting good practice using police forces and RIEPs. The new Neighbourhood Crime & Justice Coordinators will ensure delivery in their pioneer areas.

Last update: Monday, January 26, 2009

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