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Since the late 1980's, there has been an increasing focus on community safety issues, and a realisation of the social and economic implications which impact on local communities.
Under the framework of community planning, community safety is now a strategic priority for a range of key players who collectively can build safer, more inclusive, healthier and more vibrant, economically attractive communities.
The Government in Scotland has based its strategy on the premise that 'public safety is of paramount concern and that everyone should feel safe in their community and their own home'. Guidance to local authorities from the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (CoSLA) aims to ensure co-ordinated actions to 'protect peoples' right to live in confidence and without fear for their own or other peoples' safety'. The Association of Chief Police Officers Scotland (ACPOS) has also given its commitment to creating safer communities with publication of their policy statement.
Local authorities and police are encouraged to take the lead in building safer communities by establishing local strategic partnerships involving public organisations, the private sector and voluntary bodies.
The main purpose of Safer communities in Scotland is to assist in developing community safety partnerships throughout Scotland and to provide a framework within which partnerships are encouraged to take community safety forward. The guidance is produced in partnership with the Scottish Executive, CoSLA and ACPOS.
Audit to action
To succeed, partnerships should develop robust community safety strategies which are responsive to community concerns, evidence based and led, and outcome focused. Safer communities in Scotland offers practical advice on how partnerships can best be established and organised to audit local community safety concerns, and draw up and deliver a strategy to tackle these issues.
The process from audit to action has four stages:
Local people must be involved in defining local problems and often they will be best placed to suggest solutions.
Developing a successful partnership
A recent review of community safety strategies (Safety in Numbers, Audit Commission for England and Wales), found that many strategies do not reflect
One of the purposes of Safer communities in Scotland is to ensure partnerships in Scotland avoid these pitfalls by concentrating on what works in building safer communities.
Applying best practice involves
It is important to ensure that community safety integrates with wider social and economic policies. The community planning framework will be the overarching delivery mechanism for community safety and partnerships should be aware of the linkages to other aspects of the community plan.
To build a successful partnership, Safer communities in Scotland suggests that the local authority Chief Executive, after consultation with the Chief Constable and elected members, forms a multi-agency partnership. Decisions will need to be made on the most appropriate partnership structure and which senior officers should be represented.
It is also suggested that partnerships should draw up a statement of purpose for the partnership, agree working practices, and form an implementation group to assist in delivering the partnership community safety strategy. It is recommended that to be effective a community safety manager/officer is designated by the local authority and a police local authority liaison officer (LALO) by the Chief Constable.
Community safety audits
Developing a community safety strategy involves the delivery of services that benefit local communities by identifying local concerns and then working with local people to address those concerns. To be of any value, it has to reflect local people's views and their main concerns about crime and anti-social behaviour, as well as other issues such as road and fire safety.
The audit will fall into three main stages:
Although the primary purpose of the audit is to assist in developing a community safety strategy it can also provide useful information in developing local policing plans; youth crime aspects of children's services plans; the work of social inclusion partnerships; fire safety plans; social work strategies for young offenders; the work of drug action teams; and road safety plans.
Developing a community safety strategy
A good audit will
The next step is for the partnership to prioritise the problems identified in the audit and consider what it is going to do about each in turn. Experience of community safety partnerships and other strategic inter-agency groups suggests that it is best to concentrate on a limited number of objectives over the course of an initial three year strategic plan.
Partnerships may benefit from setting some short-term objectives which might be achieved in the first year to show early success in responding to community concerns. Most objectives will be expected to be achieved over the three year lifetime of the strategic plan. Some social objectives might take more than three years to achieve.
The partnership's strategy should take account of individual agencies' own service objectives. Strategies which incorporate or complement the objectives of key partners are more likely to succeed. Key partners should also be encouraged to incorporate the partnership's goals into their own service plans. They will then be in a better position to identify their own specific contribution to the work of the partnership.
A range of strategic options needs to be carefully considered and individual elements objectively appraised before drafting an action plan. Action planning cannot start in earnest until a strategy has been drafted.
There are three key stages in developing a strategy:
The strategy should include the interventions which are most appropriate, realistic and offer best value to the local problem(s), supported by evidence of what works from other areas.
Programme management: developing the strategy
Good programme management practice is the key to successful implementation of the strategy. It is essential that the programme of work is tightly managed and regular management information is available to allow the corporate partnership group to monitor progress.
An action plan should be drawn up annually with regular progress checks and an annual report should be produced which sets out achievements against targets. The action plan will specify what is being done, who is doing it, when, and with what resources, to meet the targets set by the partnership.
Setting targets helps to make sure that action plans turn into reality. It gives a clear understanding of what is needed, and allows accountability in a transparent and objective way. Effective target setting can give direction and focus to the strategy, elicit agencies' ownership of the strategy, and allow for assessing achievement and exercising accountability.
In general, actions that are the responsibility of individual agencies will be easier to implement than those requiring joint action. Individual agencies should take ownership of those parts of the action plan that most naturally relate to their core activities.
Successful implementation of the plan will require the partnership to agree roles and responsibilities between different agencies; make sure that people involved have the skills, training and support to carry out the tasks; set up systems for collecting and evaluating all monitoring and evaluation data; and set in place clear lines of accountability, with dates for reporting back on progress.
Monitoring and evaluation strategies should be put in place once the action plan has been agreed. Agreement on performance indicators, data collation systems and monitoring responsibilities is necessary, as is a decision on the level of evaluation and who will carry this out.
The pattern and nature of community safety problems is expected to change over time. Partnerships should set up a joint database with regular quarterly updates on recorded crime, fire and accident figures and other key pieces of data in order to monitor changes. This may include updating the community safety profile at the end of each year.
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