MPA statutory responsibility in Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships

Report: 11
Date: 27 February 2003
By: Clerk

Summary

The MPA scrutiny onto Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships (CDRPs) made recommendations to improve the MPS contribution in CDRPs. It also considered how best the MPA could fulfil its forthcoming statutory responsibility in CDRPs. Members examined the scrutiny report in January and deferred their agreement for three of the recommendations. This paper provides further detail on these three recommendations to inform members’ decision.

A. Recommendations

That recommendation 12 be agreed.
That recommendations 32 and 33 related to the forthcoming MPA statutory responsibility in CDRPs be agreed, subject to budget being made available to implement them.
If recommendations 32 and 33 are rejected, that members suggest how they would like the MPA to fulfil its responsibility in CDRPs.

B. Supporting information

1. At the January Authority meeting, members considered the draft report of the CDRP scrutiny. The thirty-five recommendations made in the report aim to bring improvement in the MPS contribution to CDRPs and highlight how best the MPA could fulfil its forthcoming statutory responsibility in CDRPs. Members agreed with thirty-two of the recommendations and deferred their decision regarding recommendations 12, 32 and 33.

2. Recommendations 12, 32 and 33 are attached in appendix 1.

Recommendation 12 – funding for boroughs

3. Recommendation 12 asks for a sum of £40,000 to £50,000 to be allocated annually to each Borough Operational Command Unit (BOCU) for partnership work. MPS evidence givers who took part in the scrutiny (borough commanders and MPS officers conducting partnership work) were contacted again and asked about the sources they use or could use to lever money (if any) for partnership work. They were also asked for examples as to how they would use £50,000. The information gathered is in appendix 2. Also given at Appendix 2 are some examples of evidence gathered during the scrutiny.

4. The information gathered highlights the absence of alternative source for BOCUs to financially contribute to their CDRP. The financial support of CDRPs relies on local authorities and on their willingness to allocate some of their fund to crime and disorder reduction. MPS borough commanders listed areas where an MPS financial contribution would make a difference. They include: various crime and disorder reduction initiatives (on gun crime, drugs, and domestic violence); crime prevention packs; admin support, analytical capability and expertise in crime reduction; training and seminars on crime and disorder reduction for MPS officers working in partnership; crime and disorder audit; consultation with the local communities; youth projects; short-term capital funding.

5. The sum of money recommended by the scrutiny panel came from the evidence heard, particularly from borough commanders and from previous year budget proposals made by the MPS for £50,000 per borough. A sum of £40,000 to £50,000 was felt by the panel to be the minimum amount that can be used to effect and to bring in partnership funding. Its use should be monitored and evaluated during the year.

MPA involvement in CDRPs

6. Recommendation 32 asks MPA members to sit on the board of their link CDRP(s). This recommendation was made on the basis of the evidence provided to the panel, as to how CDRP partners would like the MPA to implement its statutory responsibility. The oral and written evidence supporting recommendation 32 can be found on pages 98 and 99 of the scrutiny report. An extract of this evidence is shown at appendix 3.

7. The panel also recommended that “To ensure a consistent approach across London, the MPA should establish minimum standards relating to the MPA link members’ role on CDRPs” aimed at providing a template for consistency, rather than a prescriptive model. These minimum standards have not yet been written, pending the decision regarding this recommendation, but would be done so in full consultation with members.

8. The panel is aware of the difficulties related to the membership of MPA link members in CDRPs. Hence recommendation 33, which asks for MPA officers to be recruited to support members’ involvement. Further information on the roles and responsibilities of this CDRP unit is provided in appendix 4.

9. The panel believes that this CDRP team should include a CDRP policy development officer, a CDRP consultation officer, and four CDRP policy support officers. Appendix 5 details the costs of these positions.

10. Members should be aware that recommendations 32 and 33 enable the MPA to fulfil its statutory role. If those are not agreed, alternative ways to fulfil this responsibility will be required. Recommendation 33 supports recommendation 32 and provides members with staff to support them in their involvement in their link CDRP(s).

C. Equality and diversity implications

There are no identified equality and diversity implications outside those highlighted in the scrutiny report.

D. Financial implications

The implementation of the recommendations made in this report has significant cost implications, both for the MPS and for the MPA. The MPA finance committee and the Full Authority budget committee have agreed to allocate a sum of £238,000 to implement the recommendations made with regard to the MPA involvement in CDRPs. This sum would meet in total the cost of a CDRP unit of six persons as detailed in Appendix 4. Provision has been made in the 2003/4 budget for £50,000 per borough for partnership funding, £1.6m in total.

E. Background papers

CDRP scrutiny report, January 2003

F. Contact details

Report author: Claire Lambert and Johanna Gillians, MPA

For more information contact:

MPA general: 020 7202 0202
Media enquiries: 020 7202 0217/18

Appendix 1

Recommendations 12, 32 and 33

Recommendation 12:

That the MPA considers as high priority allocating annually an additional £40,000 to £50,000 to each BOCU for partnership work.

Recommendation 32:

MPA members should sit on the board of their link CDRP(s). To ensure a consistent approach across London, the MPA should establish minimum standards relating to the MPA link members’ role on CDRPs.

Recommendation 33:

A team of MPA officers should be created. Its responsibilities would include supporting MPA link members’ involvement in CDRPs, assisting CDRPs in consulting with their communities, and collecting and disseminating examples of good practice across CDRPs. This unit should work closely with other pan-London agencies and help to address CDRP needs at a strategic level.

Appendix 2

Background information supporting recommendation 12

1. Recent Borough Commander Views

Since the Full Authority meeting, borough commanders participating in the scrutiny have been asked what some dedicated partnership funding is required and to what use such funding would be put.

Three borough commanders replied as follows:

MPS borough commander 1 – February 2003

My personal view is that the MPS is regularly embarrassed by our failure to be able to offer appropriate funding to a variety of partnership issues. When we undertook a crime audit for the crime & disorder strategy work, we were the joint employer of Crime Concern to undertake this work. The Local Authority agreed to meet 50% of the cost (£10k). They expected us to meet the other half and were incredulous that I had no fund to access.

I do not have, in reality, a budget that I am managing at all, if you exclude police overtime. Given time, I'm sure totally devolved budgets will arrive. If I had a devolved budget now, a priority would be a partnership fund. At a guess I would wish to put about £50k into it.

Given the legal requirements to work within a partnership framework, I fail to see how we can play a full and appropriate role without access to a local partnership fund - and that means access NOW.

MPS borough commander 2 – February 2003

Some examples of the things we have/ would spend partnership funding on are:

A learning pack for all 7-11 year olds on the borough to develop thoughts about safety, self-esteem and responses to abuse. (4000 children) Match funding £10K
YOT partnership (i.e. costs of accommodation etc) £13K
Match funding for anti-social behaviour co-ordinator £10K
Part funding of production of play with anti-gun and drug crime message £2K
Two year training programme for officers on domestic violence £5K
Employing consultant to produce community based anti-gun crime initiative £6K

This list is not exhaustive, but illustrative.

MPS borough commander 3- February 2003

Borough partnership funding would enable us to start initiatives off ourselves, rather than being reactive to the ideas of others. It helps sell crime reduction ideas and projects to partners if we have money to offer. It would help us ensure that we fund things that the police view as important initiatives.

Such funding would be important in providing us a quick reaction contingency fund. Often we need to react to unforeseen problems quickly. Even though these involve small sums of money the system of advanced bidding for funding and long evaluations does not allow for that.

I have numerous examples of what funding could be used for. But generally I would use if for the quick reaction funding issues, which are difficult to predict in advance. One example, however, would be a contribution to target youth outreach work to get a swift response to complaints about gangs of disaffected kids. At the moment we can only use police officers to move them on, which just moves the problem elsewhere and causes antagonism. Funding sessions with youth workers can often be more effective in diverting them into constructive alternative activity.

I would also use a borough fund for funding short-term small capital projects - such as providing essential (but comparatively inexpensive) equipment to enhance the work of a youth centre or to buy specialised covert cameras and attack alarms to provide protection to a particularly vulnerable victim or to gather evidence of offences.

2. Evidence gathered in the scrutiny report

Also included below are some illustrative examples from the scrutiny report of evidence heard or replies received from questionnaires regarding dedicated MPS borough funding for partnership work

‘It would help if the police were given a budget to contribute to this work financially. A few years ago we had a budget of £50,000 for community work, which was a very useful bargaining tool. It would therefore be helpful if local borough command units had more autonomy with regard to target setting and resource deployment.’
‘All police services could improve their working practices to empower BOCU officers to direct resources and take action without always referring up the command structure. E.g. devolution of budgets, so that BOCUs can fund initiatives that may not be police-led’
‘Additional funding for the police would also help to avoid the problem of the partnership being skewed towards the local authority who usually have far more resources to contribute than the police.’
‘It is immensely dispiriting to officers not to have any funds to bring to the table and it is also very difficult for other partners to understand. Officers are then left having to contribute less tangible resources – office space, officer time etc.’
‘’The MPS is not as advanced in devolution as other forces. Devolution rates in the MPS are only 20%, whereas 80% would be a more appropriate level of devolution and this has a negative effect. However, all BOCUs were allocated funding for partnership work when the legislation was first introduced (£30 000, but successive bids for £50 000 were unsuccessful) and this can be very useful in a variety of ways, e.g. to facilitate a joint seminar or to purchase dedicated IT equipment. We did actually suggest the MPS send some officers to other police forces that are further along in their devolution programmes to examine their activity-based costing models.’
‘It would be useful if the police could make a cost contribution to projects and core budgets.’ (CDRP partner)
‘Perhaps they could bring resources with them. In kind as well as financial.’ (CDRP partner)

Appendix 3

Background information supporting recommendation 33

1. Questionnaire results

The responses to a question in the CDRP and BLO questionnaires in relation to whether MPA members should sit on partnerships were:

Number of responses

CDRP partners BLOs

I am in favour of this practice 34 (55.8%) 9 (69.2%)

I am not in favour of this practice 6 (9.8%) 2 (15.4%)

I do not have an informed views on this issue 21 (34.4%) 2 (15.4%)

Total 61 (100%) 13 (100%)

2. Support for MPA member involvement

The full evidence collected can be found on pages 98 and 99 in the scrutiny report. However a sample of views supporting MPA involvement in CDRPs are shown below:

‘[I would like MPA members] to attend CDRP executive board meetings to experience the ordinary business of CDRP. This would highlight the different concerns of the various attending agencies. By recognising the conflicts that exist between local communities with quality of life issues and the home office driven priorities’ (BLO)
‘MPA members can offer a regional perspective and comment objectively on local activity.’ (CDRP partner)
This involvement would ‘hopefully lead to a greater recognition of locally based activity.’ (BLO)
‘I would expect the borough link member to join the CDRP, because they could add an influential/challenging voice. ‘(Oral evidence giver)

3. Views against MPA member involvement

‘The difficulty is that unless they come with a very well developed brief and MPA corporate position they will act as individuals promoting their own views.’ (CDRP partner)
‘Our link member is an appointed councillor. This may be problematic- conflict of interest.’ (CDRP partner)
‘Depends on the time commitment of the link member and on their ability to contribute to local issues.’ (CDRP partner)
‘Members round the table are those that bring resources (staff, funding etc) to reduce crime. What resources do the MPA have to apply to crime reduction issues?’ (CDRP partner)

Appendix 4

Roles and responsibilities of the CDRP team

Full job descriptions for staff in the recommended CDRP support team have not yet been written, pending the results of this paper. However, the overall roles and responsibilities of the CDRP team should include:

Support for MPA members in their involvement in their link CDRP(s).
Providing briefings where appropriate to MPA members.
Providing day-to-day links with the CDRPs.
Ensuring consistency in the MPA involvement across CDRPs.
Co-ordinating with other pan-London agencies involved in the field of CDRPs to avoid duplication of work and agree on a common agenda and way forward regarding CDRPs.
Implementing the recommendations made by the scrutiny panel on the MPA role in CDRPs, including assisting CDRPs in the following areas: consultation with the local communities, community and voluntary sectors representation in CDRPs, performance-monitoring arrangements. Report to the Consultation and the PPR committees on these issues.
Working jointly with the Consultation and the Planning and performance units where appropriate.
Assisting in monitoring the recommendations made by the scrutiny panel regarding the MPS contribution to CDRPs.
Working jointly with the MPS central unit to collect and disseminate examples of good practice.
Assisting in bringing forward partnership work on the MPS agenda.
Making sure London CDRPs are aware of the MPA statutory role, and know about the other MPA responsibilities.

Appendix 5

Estimated costs of the CDRP staff (£s)

Basic
salary

£
ERNIC Pension Running
costs
Total

CDRP Policy Development Officer
(training, travelling etc)
33500.00 3182.50 4522.50 1500.00 42,705.00

CDRP Consultation Officer
(developing CDRP consultation)
29000.00 2755.00 3915.00 1500.00 37,170.00

CDRP Policy Support Officers
(supporting members on boroughs)
29000.00 2755.00 3915.00 1500.00 37,170.00

4 policy development officers: 4 X £37,170 = £148,680

Grand total for a year £37,170+ £42,705 + £148,680 = £228,555

Officers will expect to be recruited 3 months into the year:
1st year costs = 9 months of above = £171,416
Hence a part year cost of £171,416.

Recruitment and any individual on-going training costs can be met within existing MPA budgets. Staff can be accommodated on a hot-desking basis within existing MPA accommodation.