Blackburn with Darwen Community Safety Partnership

What was the stimulus/ need?

The 1998 Crime and Disorder Act placed a statutory requirement on the Police and Local Authorities to develop local partnerships with Probation, Health and others to address crime and disorder issues (including antisocial behaviour - ASB). Blackburn's Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnership (CDRP) was established in 1998, building on an earlier Safer Cities Partnership. In the same year, as part of the national pilot programme, the Youth Offending Team (YOT) was established. In early 2001, the Council and Police created a multi-agency Crime and Disorder Reduction Team which was expanded into a 'joint crime and drugs' multi-agency team bringing together the work of Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnership and the Drug Action Team (DAT).

The Police Reform Bill in 2002 and a review of structures by the Local Strategic Partnership provided a further stimulus to look at closer working between the three interlinked agendas of crime, drugs and youth offending. Having reviewed the structures it was decided that the three steering groups be amalgamated into one overarching strategic Community Safety Partnership (CSP).

This case study takes the Council's response to the challenge of tackling ASB as an example of how it addresses partnership issues.

How was the need tackled?

The need to drive forward a problem solving approach where each person and agency takes responsibility was evidenced by the number of 'operational' calls received by the central partnership crime and disorder team. The Partnership recognised that a 'problem-solving' approach at a local level was required encompassing:

• making use of data to establish the existence and extent of a problem
  
• drawing on findings from existing research to inform data analysis and choice of responses
  
• applying informed, lateral thought in developing innovative solutions, and adapting practice in the light of feedback
  
• ensuring that partners take responsibility for finding solutions

(For an on-line guide to a problem-solving approach, see www.crimereduction.gov.uk/toolkits/p0104.htm)

The Council divided the Borough of Blackburn with Darwen into 5 new Neighbourhood Areas (active from January 2003) to engage the community more closely in decision-making on service planning and also in tackling problems quickly and locally. As a key partner, the Police patch boundaries were redrawn so that they too are co-terminous with those of the Council's new Neighbourhoods. The Primary Care Trust are currently reviewing their boundaries as are the Fire & Rescue Service, so that they are also coterminous with the Neighbourhood boundaries. Ultimately, the key statutory partners' local working arrangements will be share common boundaries.

These "virtual" (virtual, because the neighbourhood staff teams are not located together) are critical to the partnership approach to tackling problems at a local level. The staff working at neighbourhood level form the heart of the local problem-solving groups;

• The Council has appointed 5 Neighbourhood Coordinators for each of the five areas. The coordinators are responsible for on-going problem solving and linking to service providers for their area.
  
• The Police provided two Community Beat Managers and one Police Community Support Officer (PCSO) for each area (the latter funded under the national Home Office pilot). The Beat Managers' remit is wider than crime and includes an important element of community engagement.
  
• The Primary Care Trust has appointed neighbourhood care workers for each of the five areas.

To support the new neighbourhood problem-solving approach, the Partnership:

• held a conference for strategic and operational partnership staff, including the Assistant Director of Regeneration in the Council, Youth Offending Team Manager, Environmental Health Manager, Neighbourhood Co-ordinators & Police Community Beat Managers, to raise awareness of and gain high-level support for the model. One of their main objectives was to ensure that officers within the local authority realise that they must attempt to solve problems that fall within their area of responsibility before passing them to the problem-solving teams at neighbourhood level: "crime and safety activity should be driven by the strategy with support of officers' and senior representatives from partner organisations".
  
• developed and delivered multi-agency induction with training for relevant council officers and staff from other agencies (Probation, Social Services, Education, Fire Service, etc). The training included:
  
• problem solving methodology
  
• framework for problem solving, eg, how to refer a problem
  
• case studies to be worked through by the teams
  
• background on policy and methodology

To date, the local authority has trained over 200 officers (Housing Officers, police, etc) on Section 17 of Crime & Disorder Act: "helping those delivering the strategy to make the links, and to show them how safety is an issue and it is their responsibility".

The main problem within the Council during the implementation stage was the resistance of officers to pass problems down to the people who understand how things work on the ground. In addition, the local authority had to wait for the other agencies to accept these issues as mainstream issues and also to get their systems up and running to cope with new partnership regime. They successfully "sold" the concept top down, eg, through the conference, and by appointing the Policy and Performance Officer (Antisocial Behaviour) primarily concerned with the strategic development process of the partnership, "so that those who should be involved, are involved".

The three implementation groups of the Community Safety Partnership each have six-weekly meetings at which they discuss implementation issues as they arise on the ground: trouble-shooting, discussing issues and reviewing targets. Officer-level staff from each group attend the meetings of all three groups.

In 2002, the Council has introduced twice-yearly joint seminars for YOT, DAT and CDRP in place of formal quarterly meetings which were not very participative. Invitees include representatives from the voluntary and community sector. The seminars are led by the Police Chief Superintendent with the Executive Director of the Council, and are designed for transparency, giving an update of partnership activity, followed by sessions on topics chosen by participants. The first seminar explained the new CSP, the second addressed youth offending issues, and the third will concentrate on antisocial behaviour.

What were the outcomes?

Members of the CSP recently carried out a self-assessment, rating their effectiveness against criteria for Leadership, Audit & Strategies, People & Partners, Resources, Processes, and Results. They found that the CSP has been appreciated by people in all the agencies working on the ground. People especially welcomed a Partnership Guide which contained guidance on the CSP Action Plan, contact details within the CSP and its partner agencies, dates of meetings, etc.

It is too early yet to provide measurable evidence of the outcomes and benefits for communities and individuals that can be attributed to the new way of working within the CSP. However, local residents are pleased with how the new Street Sex Workers Scheme is working. New partnership training for police officers on the treatment of victims been well received, with 100% satisfaction among the victims themselves.

The CSP believes that the partnership approach to problem-solving is transferable to other areas of their activity and to wider regeneration work.

What was learnt?

Key lessons include:

• be clear about the role of the partnership
  
• don't underestimate how long it will take to build the partnership
  
• set out roles and responsibilities for how partners will operate together within an overarching strategy which is everyone's issue
  
• ensure that the responsible person from each relevant agency and department is named as a key contact
  
• remember that agencies have overlapping agendas, which have to be sorted out. Work out where overlap is, build relationships, acknowledge the fact that there will be constraints on people's resources and accept that there are always slight tensions, eg, getting the correct balance between intervention, prevention and rehabilitation
  
• have a media plan and protocol which gives a framework within which partners publicise their work
  
• don't be reactive: remember the CSP has a three-year strategy, and develop relationships with organisations whose people operate on the ground so you they can be proactive within the framework of the strategy
  

Contact

Sharon Kemp
Crime & Disorder Reduction Manager
Blackburn with Darwen Council
Town Hall
Blackburn
Lancashire
BB1 7DY

Tel: 01254 585717

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