PDF Reducing CO2 Emissions Aug 2010 

Key Learning Points for Others  

These six partnerships have acted upon a collective knowledge that climate change is already impacting upon their locality and that the future impacts and costs require urgent action now. Many areas have completed Local Climate Impact Profiles and are commencing on the comprehensive risk assessments required for NI 188. 

They have achieved consensus around what needs to be done and secured “collaborative” leadership from the public, private and community sectors and from their local residents.

Critically they have:

• Invested in the necessary baseline evidence
• Set and signed up to clear and unambiguous targets
• Worked together and supported one another
• Made their objectives relevant to local people and businesses through innovative and targeted communications
• Led from the front – seeking improvement from within their own organisations
• Secured some significant and “visible” successes
• Embedded actions to reduce emissions as part of people’s and organisations every day lives 

The Issue 

Climate Change is a major challenge for us all. It requires us to do things differently and will increasingly affect the decisions that are made about the way our cities, towns, and villages are run. The 2008 Climate Change Act[1] and related Low Carbon Transition Plan[2] commit us as a nation to ambitious reductions in Green House Gas Emissions. 

The six Local Strategic Partnerships that received Green Flags from the Audit Commission for their work in reducing CO2 emissions are very different, but they, and their residents, share a common belief that Climate Change matters, and that we must respond now to protect the environment for the generations that follow. 

How can Local Area Agreements and National Indicators help?  

Local Authorities are all now required by Government to reduce their carbon footprint. Progress is measured using National Indicator 185: Reduction from Local Authority Operations. 

A number of other National Indicators also drive actions in response to Climate Change. These include NI 175 access to services via public transport, walking and cycling; NI186 Reduction in per capita CO2 emissions; NI 187 reducing air pollution; NI188 adapting to climate change; NI 191 residual household waste, NI 192 % of household waste sent for reuse, recycling and composting; NI193 maximise diversion of waste away from landfill and NI 198 Children travel to school by car.

Partnership’s performance against these National Indicators is assessed at the higher tier (local authority) level. These indicators are relevant not only to local authorities but also to their public sector partners (organisations like Primary Care Trusts, Police and Fire & Rescue Services and Universities).

All of the “CO2 emission green flag” partnerships included improvement targets against some of these National Indicators within their Local Area Agreements. Their inclusion within the LAA ensured that the need to develop a local response to Climate Change was clearly identified as a shared priority. The need to act together to achieve targets agreed with central government created a useful imperative for working groups populated with representatives from local authorities, public service providers, the private and community and voluntary sectors.

What works / What is being tried?  

Between them the six partnerships have engaged in a wide range of activity. There are some similarities in their approach however, and some shared areas of thematic focus. 

Setting the Agenda and Leading the Way 

Each of the partnerships has set down a very clear marker about what they want to achieve. This take the form of a shared strategy backed up by clear and ambitious reduction targets. Birmingham’s target is to reduce carbon emissions from the city by 60% from 1990 levels by 2026. Their strategy sets three yearly targets which are incorporated within the Local Area Agreement; Devon has a shared Carbon Reduction Plan and included binding local targets for emissions reductions in its 2008 – 2011 Local Area Agreement; Sutton’s targets relate to using resources sustainably – it sets out targets to become a one planet living borough (if everyone in the world lived like an average UK resident three planets would be needed to sustain our global population). Targets to reach one planet living include the ambition to reaching zero carbon within the borough by 2025.

In Islington the Partnership developed an ambitious sustainability action plan to enable the authority to achieve, “a step change in the way the whole borough manages its natural and man-made resources” they then went on to develop a Climate Change Partnership (CCP) and pledge, which commits partners to work together to; reduce carbon dioxide emissions by at least 15 per cent by 2010 and support and work with other members in order to achieve an overall reduction of 55,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide by 2010.

These targets have been negotiated and agreed across the partnership and have the backing of the leaders from all partner organisations. In several instances the targets were debated and agreed with input from local residents and the business community.

Acquiring and Sharing Information and Intelligence

The partnerships have invested heavily in information and intelligence. Partner organisations have calculated their carbon footprints and the impact that they have in terms of emissions each year. Many have worked with the Carbon Trust to develop and implement organisational Carbon Management Plans or prepared carbon baseline studies, such as the one commissioned by the Islington Partnership and delivered by the Centre for Sustainable Energy.

Several have gone further however, investing in specific intelligence which they have then shared with local people, such as the thermal mapping and annual State of the Environment reports produced by Worcestershire Partnership. In Birmingham the Council has developed a customer segmentation model which includes data about people’s attitudes to the environment.  This data has been cross referenced to a thermal image of the city to enable partners to focus resources on the most inefficient homes occupied by people with a propensity to take action.  Sutton Partnership has engaged closely with its residents, showing them the financial impact of different lifestyle choices, whilst Devon Partnership has produced easy to use guides for schools, business and householders showing how small actions can save money and be good for the environment.

In Southampton the City Council knows which of its services produce the most carbon dioxide and is dealing with these as a key priority. For example, rubbish collection vehicles reduced their fuel use by 8,000 litres last year and the council is now focusing on improving carbon emissions in its leisure centres. Islington has created in internal Carbon Management Group which works with external partners to reduce consumption.

Raising Awareness and Influencing Behavioural Change 

All the Partnerships are clear that to succeed they must influence behavioural change. Partnerships have developed “channel strategies” and have created and delivered messages and campaigns to their own staff, their customers, their suppliers, businesses and local residents.

The Devon Partnership has run a series of media campaigns (‘Don’t Let Devon Go To Waste’ and ‘Jingle Bells’) which have brought important issues such as recycling and the need to reduce CO2 to the attention of hundreds of thousands of Devon residents. This has resulted in high levels of recycling. Their campaign to encourage people to reduce car use employed roadside signs to promote car sharing and produced literature for schools, colleges and local businesses to encourage cycling. It introduced extensive free and reduced bus fare schemes across the county for young people in education. Now, 20 per cent of children in Exeter cycle to school compared with 2 per cent nationally and bus patronage has increased significantly, against the national trend.

In Birmingham Partners support behaviour change with a range of programmes including funding for a faith and climate change coordinator. The programme is being replicated across the West Midlands – looking at climate change in terms of values regardless of faith. A programme in South Lozells aims to help home owners to reduce heating bills by making use of environmental improvements and activities. ‘Green doctors’ visit home owners to discuss their circumstances and look at their needs and requirements. It is estimated that through the simple application of a range of energy saving measures home owners can save up to 35 per cent on their fuel bills’.

In Worcestershire the County Council has run a ‘switch it off’ campaign with schools over the last three years. School children do a secret energy audit the week before the switch off so they can see what difference it makes. Some schools saw a big difference of between 20–50 per cent. Not only do schools use less energy, but children take the message home with them and are learning for future years.

The Smarter Travel Sutton programme addresses a high priority for residents, which is tackling congestion by providing residents with information on travel choices. Over a two year period, the programme resulted in a 50 per cent increase in cycling in Sutton and an increase in the number of people travelling by bus of over 7 per cent. Sutton also ran a climate change campaign aimed at increasing awareness and educating residents about climate change. In Islington the partnership runs a Greener Living advisory service from a retail unit in the High Street.

Delivering Major Emission Reductions 

The partnerships have led by example, setting challenging targets for emissions reductions within their own organisations and working with public and private sector to secure some high profile schemes which offer significant savings in emissions. 

In Birmingham the council has set up a district energy company in partnership with Utilicom a private sector business.  Two combined heat and power systems have been installed in the city centre saving over 5,000 tonnes of co2 per annum. Two further community heating schemes, both supported by the Homes and Communities Agency Low Carbon Infrastructure, will provide heating for homes via connections with CHP plants. One scheme connects two 13 storey blocks of flats to a biomass combined heat and power plant installed in the neighbouring school, the other connects the Cambridge and Crescent Towers with the city centre CHP system. 

In Worcestershire collective action by partners has significantly reduced the amount of waste going to landfill and increased recycling levels by 8.5% across the county. As part of this initiative an incinerator was set up at The Alexandra Hospital in Redditch which burns waste produced across the Acute Trust’s operations and recycles the heat produced to heat the hospital. 

In Sutton the partnership has supported development of The Phoenix Centre, an environmentally sustainable building that has regenerated the Roundshaw estate by creating jobs, improving health and community safety. The Hackbridge area of the borough has the ambition to become the world’s first sustainable suburb, with all new homes in the area to be net zero carbon by 2011. Residents in the area are driving the development of this project into a national model of green living. Projects currently under development include decentralised energy, and plans for a Low Carbon zone.

Islington’s Climate Change Partnership has identified and targeted large emitters of greenhouse gases in addition to its work with the wider community. They have worked with the London Development Agency to retro-fit decentralised energy solutions. Their objective is to fit Combined Heat & Power plants into existing commercial and residential property as part of a district wide initiative to reduced consumption of fossil fuels by 30%.

In Southampton a long standing partnership between the council and Utilicom provides the innovative District Energy Scheme for heating and cooling in the city. This scheme uses a natural geothermal energy source beneath the city which is piped to local buildings and has helped the city minimise energy consumption and cut carbon emissions by saving over 12,000 tonnes of CO2 each year. 

In Devon changes in equipment and the management of public leisure pools has saved 220 tonnes of CO2 and energy saving investment in public buildings has saved an additional 500 tonnes of CO2 in their first year. 

In some areas (for example Birmingham and Worcestershire) the partnerships have sought to co-ordinate the delivery of the Government’s Carbon Emissions Reduction Target (CERT) and Warm Front programmes, thus maximising available public investment in the energy efficiency of their private and public housing stock.   

Making Transition the Obvious Way Forward   

In each area, the partnerships have understood that change can be achieved through the combination of a lot of small actions. They have worked closely with residents and businesses to achieve small, but valuable changes in behaviour, ensuring that the messages they use are practical and focus on the immediate and tangible benefits offered to the household or business as well as the broader outcome of mitigating Climate Change. 

The Devon Partnership has used as series of interactive campaigns to encourage local people to play their part in improving the environment in Devon now and in the future. It has led campaigns to recycle, give the car a day off a week and turn the temperature down on central heating and washing machines. It encourages residents to buy local produce and not use a plastic bag to carry it home, change to energy saving light bulbs and turn things off not leaving them on stand by. The Partnership provides information to show how much money is saved from each of these activities as well as the carbon savings. 

In Worcestershire the partnership has made its thermal mapping work available on the internet so that people can see detailed levels of emissions from their homes and business and can then access advice about how to reduce them. In Sutton the Partnership has sought to build small actions that address Climate Change into people’s every day interactions with partner organisations. GP’s refer people for walking programmes to improve their health; the police have targeted cycle theft and significantly reduced the thefts of cycles in the area; some shops offer discounts for customers that travel by non-car transport. In Islington the Partnership has provided free energy surveys for organisations too small to qualify for Carbon Trust Grants. 

In Birmingham the Partnership has used investment in improving the energy efficiency of its housing stock as an economic development opportunity. Its “green new deal” programme seeks to develop skills in the local labour force and create a local low carbon supply chain which will create jobs and address worklessness in some of the most deprived areas of the city.   

Why it works / Lessons and conclusions 

These partnerships started early and where driven by local concerns about the impact of Climate Change on future generations. 

They engaged a cross section of organisations and built consensus around the issues. They defined a realistic but ambitious response and quantified their objectives in clear and unambiguous targets for reductions in emissions. 

They invested to acquire and share knowledge and intelligence – working with partner organisations to define and agree a “carbon baseline” which can be used to monitor and measure progress. 

They benefited from collaborative leadership. This was achieved through the support of political, business and faith leaders at an early stage of the process.  Many of the partnership involved their local Higher Education and academic institutions in the process from the outset. 

They have included Improvement Targets linked to their objectives in their Local Area Agreements, so securing collective “corporate” support and access to mainstream human and financial resources. 

They have understood that securing behavioural change is very difficult. They have worked with all parts of society to get their message across – their own staff and suppliers, schools and universities, businesses, households and visitors. In each instance they have succeeded in making the message relevant to its recipient – always seeking to address the “what’s in it for me?” question.   

They have been aware that it is easy to raise expectations and to score “own goals” (such as leaving lights on overnight in council buildings or a planning committee turning down a community’s application for Photo Voltaic panels on an urban church roof. 

They have been effective and committed collaborators – working with and supporting each other to implement individual actions which collectively contribute towards their shared goal. 

But perhaps most of all, they have succeeded in embedding a series of valuable actions to reduce emissions into the every day lives of their organisations, their local communities and economies. 

Contacts and Links 

Birmingham

Keith Budden, Manager Birmingham Environmental Partnership

Tel: 0121 464 9169

Keith.Budden@birmingham.gov.uk

Devon

Pauline Warner, Environmental Policy Manager

Tel:  01392 383012

pauline.warner@devon.gov.uk 

Islington

Maxine Holdsworth, Head of Sustainability Environment and Regeneration

Tel: 020 7527 3517

maxine.holdsworth@islington.gov.uk 

Southampton

Bill Clark, Sustainability Policy Manager

Tel: 023 8083 2600

Bill.Clark@southampton.gov.uk

Sutton

Katherine Hudson, Environmental Sustainability Manager

Katherine.hudson@sutton.gov.uk

Worcestershire

Maggie Bryan, Worcestershire Partnership Manager

Tel: 01905 766103 / 07703 097962

mbryan@worcestershire.gov.uk

[1] http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2008/ukpga_20080027_en_1

[2] http://www.decc.gov.uk/publications/Default.aspx?term=Low%20Carbon%20Transition%20Plan&tags=&urn=&fromDate=&toDate=&alpha=

Comprehensive Area Assessment green flags show outstanding achievements or improvements, or an innovation that is likely to be successful within a local area.  In the first round of CAA assessments several areas received green flags for their approach to crime and anti-social behaviour.  This case study covers the innovative work of Trafford in tackling gun crime and gang violence, Liverpool’s work to tackle city centre violence, and Camden’s and Kensington and Chelsea’s approach to crime and anti-social behaviour

Essential knowledge

Comprehensive Area Assessment, or CAA, is an assessment of local public services in England. It examines how well councils are working together with other public bodies to meet the needs of the people they serve. It’s a joint assessment made by a group of six independent watchdogs.  Assessments provide a snapshot of each area, and act as a catalyst for improvement by identifying where more effort is needed or where exceptional improvement may help others learn.  CAA reports performance against the national indicator set and focuses on indicators that areas have selected as priorities, making an assessment of current delivery and future prospects against those priorities.

Each area across England has been independently assessed by six inspectorates, who say how well local public services are delivering results for local people and how likely these are to improve in future. Area assessments do not have an overall score or rating, but green flags show outstanding achievements or improvements, or an innovation that is likely to be successful.

Tackling crime and anti-social behaviour can help address the following national indicators:

• NI 15 Serious violent crime PSA 23
• NI 16 Serious acquisitive crime
• NI 17 Perceptions of anti-social behaviour
• NI 18 Adult re-offending rates for those under probation supervision
• NI 19 Rate of proven re-offending by young offenders
• NI 20 Assault with injury crime rate
• NI 21 Dealing with local concerns about anti-social behaviour and crime issues by the local council and police
• NI 22 Perceptions of parents taking responsibility for the behaviour of their children in the area
• NI 23 Perceptions that people in the area treat one another with respect and consideration
• NI 27 Understanding of local concerns about anti-social behaviour and crime issues by the local council and police
• NI 28 Serious knife crime rate
• NI 29 Gun crime rate
• NI 30 Re-offending rate of prolific and priority offenders
• NI 33 Arson incidents
• NI 37 Awareness of civil protection arrangements in the local area CO DSO
• NI 38 Drug-related (Class A) offending rate
• NI 39 Rate of Hospital Admissions per 100,000 for Alcohol Related Harm
• NI 40 Number of drug users recorded as being in effective treatment
• NI 41 Perceptions of drunk or rowdy behaviour as a problem
• NI 42 Perceptions of drug use or drug dealing as a problem

What works?

Trafford: Tackling gun crime and gang violence

Trafford has experienced gang-related problems for a number of years along the north border areas of Old Trafford and Stretford, with strong links to problems across the border in Manchester.  About 400 people, many of them under 18, were thought to be involved. Competition between drug dealers was part of the driving force.  Since 2007 Trafford and Manchester councils and Greater Manchester Police have run a major joint project to tackle the problem.

The partnership has focused on developing a clear governance structure bringing together local partners with suitable levels of responsibility.  The Most Serious Violent Crime (MSVC) Group developed a partnership plan.  This group evolved from the Violent Gangs Strategic Group into the MSVC Group so that violent gang activity is now viewed within a broader serious youth violence context and the learning to date used effectively to tackle knife crime, violent extremism and serious sexual violence.  A strategic co-ordinator was appointed to kick start the partnership approach to this issue.  This specialist resource was vital while the work was starting, but has now been mainstreamed into a core funded Strategic Co-ordinator for Community Safety role.

The scheme has improved joint working between partners.  For example, the council are now involved in a range of settings which were previously police exclusive, including risk management meetings following serious incidents, tasking and co-ordination groups and operations.  Some police operations have been in partnership with council staff such as social workers and the youth offending service to ensure they address safeguarding needs and engage prevention services as early on as possible.

Workforce development is also a vital part of the project.  At the start of this work, there was anxiety and fear among practitioners and managers whose services came into contact with this client group and this contributed to poor decision-making and reluctance amongst services to take ownership and responsibility.  More than 200 staff within core services have now received training in tackling violent gangs and a developmental workshop now runs four times a year as part of the mainstream Children and Young People’s Service (CYPS) training programme.  This has ensured that violent gang work is now viewed by core staff as part of their day to day business.

Working with the local community has been a key aspect of the project.  Examples of this include:

• There was funding and practical support to a group of local community members to launch Peace Week 2009 in Old Trafford.  Through a series of events and a local peace march / lantern parade, it engaged residents in challenging gang culture and violence.  It ran in conjunction with an event in Manchester and is due to run again during 2010.
• The Living to Die film was made in partnership with a group of local young people and Mothers Against Violence, a local group of women whose children have been involved in gang violence. The film explores the consequences and emotions of a gang following the stabbing and murder of one of its members.
• There has also been funding and practical support to a group of local parents in Old Trafford to set up their own peer-led parent support project.
• The Old Trafford Inspiring Leaders project, designed to build local leadership, has led to a number of residents getting involved in activities directly tackling gang violence.
• An Independent Advisory Group in the Old Trafford area has been working alongside the police to tackle gang violence effectively while minimising the potential negative impact of targeted policing activity.  This has included meetings following serious incidents and ahead of high profile police raids.
• Older ex-gang members have been able to speak to young people in youth club settings to give advice and guidance on making better decisions and choosing positive lifestyles.
• Funding has supported a group of local young adult musicians to attend a series of assemblies within schools across Trafford and Manchester as positive role models with a positive message about peace.
• A specific mentoring project is being developed with Trafford Youth Offending Service to develop a cohort of their existing mentors to be specialist mentors working with young people at risk of, or involved in, violent gang activity.

Over the past two years, the Trafford Partnership has had significant success in tackling violent gang activity. Gun crime has fallen by 40 per cent in the past three years, confirmed firearm discharges also reduced by 54 per cent compared to 2007/08, and were at their lowest since 2004/05.  There were no gang-related firearms discharges at all during 2008/09. This trend has continued into 2009/10 were there has been only one confirmed discharge in the first four months of the year.  The findings of the 2008 MORI Residents Survey compared to the 2007 results also show improvements in key perception indicators within particular wards in Trafford where the bulk of the work around violent gangs has been undertaken.

From the onset the partnership has also focused on ensuring sustainability for the project.  Initially all of the funding for tackling violent gangs came from external grant funding but by April 2009 all funding was from internal sources, with the required funding being reduced from nearly £200,000 per year to £46,000 per year, provided by the Safer Trafford Partnership Board.

Liverpool: promoting a safer night-time economy

Promotion of a safer night-time economy is a key component of the overarching regeneration strategy for Liverpool and is a key consideration in the reputation and image of Liverpool.  Liverpool’s City Centre Joint Agency Group (JAG) – a sub-group of Citysafe, Liverpool’s Crime & Disorder Reduction Partnership, serviced by the City Council – was established in 2004, and incorporates all of the main agencies and stakeholders in the city centre.  It meets regularly to promote the city centre as a safe place to visit, invest and live in, and it has put in place a number of activities to address particular challenges and issues highlighted as a result of its proactive environmental scanning. The aim of the JAG is to work together in partnership to promote a safer night time economy whilst managing all of the issues in a proactive and integrated manner.

The JAG supports the strategic and operational activity of all partners and uses analytical data and information from a range of surveys, partnership data and knowledge.  Partners recognise the importance of public perceptions and communication, so the JAG routinely collects data through an Annual City Centre Feelings of Safety Survey, to bring a clearer understanding of the city centre, its market and consumers.  The JAG can then target its pooled and aligned resources to identified needs, shared priorities and outcome targets.

It delivers a number of projects and partnership activities to address these shared priorities and outcome targets:

• Goldzone – enhancing partnership resources in the city centre through a dedicated team agreed by the City Council and Merseyside Police.  The team of one sergeant and 12 constables has been in place for several years and contributes to crime reductions and community safety initiatives. To reassure and support people enjoying a night out, a taxi rank marshalling initiative has targeted potential trouble makers and stopped taxi drivers from ‘cherry picking’ fares.  Dedicated partnership patrols work closely with the Security Industry Authority accredited taxi marshals in key locations. The scheme has proved popular with residents and visitors and has helped reduce incidents of violent crime and other crime. A nine week taxi rank marshalling partnership operation held in 2007/08 resulted in a 55 per cent reduction of total crimes.  In particular, there was a 34 per cent reduction in violent offences.
• Liverpool’s city centre Pubwatch scheme has 110 pubs, bars and clubs on its membership list.  Pubwatch activities include radio alert communications – sharing information among premises; distribution of photographs and details of offenders and criminal activity, a Best Bar None Scheme – a scheme that provides an incentive for the operators of licensed premises to improve their standards of operation to the level of a commonly agreed national benchmark, Smoke Free schemes, conflict resolution training, and use of Banning Orders.
• Seasonal alcohol awareness campaigns have also been in place.
• Youth diversionary activities to divert up to 200 youths from causing anti-social behaviour in the city centre, for example a live music event for the young people resulting in high attendances and correspondingly low levels of anti-social behaviour.
• Targeted work with students has included marketing campaigns linked to safer alcohol consumption, and a new Students Health and Wellbeing Group led by the Primary Care Trust (PCT) which will take forward actions on this issue.
• Predictive crime pattern analysis provided evidence of an increase in street crime in the city centre during the Christmas shopping period.  A street crime reduction plan was therefore developed and the main hotspot areas targeted by partners including a multi-agency robbery reduction team supported by neighbourhood policing with support from the Council’s CCTV and Street Crime Wardens to gather intelligence and identify potential offenders.
• Anti-Social Behaviour Orders (ASBOs) have been used successfully against prolific offenders.  A quarter of all ASBOs in Liverpool have related to the city centre.

The City Centre JAG has pre-empted huge changes to the city which have an impact on the night time economy and have delivered key outcomes including:

• Levels of recorded crime in the city centre encompassing all crime categories have fallen in the last year by 23 per cent (2,760 offences) and by 40 per cent (6,187 offences) since 2005/06.
• Year on year, anti-social behaviour incidents have reduced in the city centre.  There has been a two per cent reduction (72 offences) since 2006 despite a booming and revitalising city centre economy.
• Injury violence offences have reduced every year since 2004/05 with a 20 per cent reduction (287 fewer offences) in 2008 compared to 2007, and a reduction of 39 per cent (722 offences) since 2004/05.

• Results from the Public Perception Survey in 2007 also show a great success in the improvement of safety feelings in the city centre, including feelings of safety in the night time. There has been an increase of two per cent in feelings of safety for women (43 per cent) during the night time in the City Centre, from 2006. For the same period, men have shown an increase of twelve per cent in their feeling of safety during the night time (four per cent).[?]
• The fear of becoming a victim of crime in the City Centre has reduced as well. This has fallen from 34 per cent of people questioned in 2006 to 24 per cent in 2007.
• The Public Perception Survey has also shown that those interviewed had witnessed fewer incidents of disorder at taxi ranks at night. This has fallen from 40 per cent of people questioned in 2006, to 26 per cent of people in 2007.

Camden – tackling crime and anti-social behaviour

In Camden significant and innovative partnership working has focused on tackling crime among the most vulnerable people in the area. In 2008/09, crime reduced by 18 per cent compared to the previous year. There have been significant reductions in theft from motor vehicles (down 32 per cent), robbery (down 25 per cent) and burglary (down 22 per cent). Camden has performed particularly well at reducing theft from the person, and assault without injury. Public confidence in Camden’s police is 78.24 per cent.

The Youth Disorder Engagement Team (YDET) was introduced in 2007/08 and expanded in 2008. The YDET work with the police Youth Engagement Team and Safer Schools Officers, carrying out regular patrols, for example at lunch times, after school and other peak times, to stop young people from causing and getting into trouble and diverting them into support services.  As trained mediators, the YDET also mediates between young people to ease hostilities, and to build trust. Five Youth Inclusion and Support Panels have provided further focussed support and monitoring to more than 190 young people in the last year and more than 3,000 Camden school pupils have taken part in “Prison Me? No Way!” and “It’s no Joke” programmes, to educate them about the consequences of getting involved in ASB and crime.

A new reparation scheme has also been introduced to reduce the number of first time entrants to the youth justice system.  Under the scheme, when a young person is arrested for the first time for a low level offence, there is an assessment of their suitability for the scheme and rather than entering the criminal justice system, the young person would be given a ‘one time deal’ to complete a set amount of reparation and be referred to relevant services, such as YISPs, for ongoing intervention and support.  Serious youth violence in Camden is rare and the approach taken has led to reductions in serious youth violence (21 per cent) and knife-enabled crime (34 per cent).

Innovative and strong partnership work by the safer streets team and local communities has contributed to a 92 per cent reduction in rough sleeping. The Safer Streets team has a key role in reducing levels of street activity such as rough sleeping and begging, street drinking, sex working, and drug related activity. The team monitors the levels of this activity, putting people in touch with support services. It has a key role in the on-going implementation of the approach, which is managed at a case-work level through the borough-wide Tasking and Targeting (T and T) model. Key to the approach is the geographically specific multi-agency meetings, which bring together all agencies working with members of the street population, and agree an intervention package.

In 2007 an extra 18 Police and Community Support Officers (PCSOs), alongside 10 borough police constables formed an enhanced team to tackle drug dealing and crime in the Camden Town area. Funding for the PCSOs came from the council and the Metropolitan Police Service. The team has contributed to a sustained decrease in crime with local analysis showing a bigger reduction in Camden Town than in the borough as a whole. To tackle drug dealing in the area there have been two major police-led operations resulting in over 60 drug related arrests over recent months.  In addition, antisocial behaviour legislation was used to address gang-related crime in the Camden Town area, with twelve members of the TMS gang being given full ASBOs.

Tackling antisocial behaviour continues to be a top concern for Camden residents.  The introduction of Antisocial Behaviour Coordinators in each District Housing Office led to increased reports of antisocial behaviour on housing estates. The new Casework system, which records and maps cases of housing related antisocial behaviour, allows more accurate targeting of resources to support this. The Housing Patrol Service has merged with Parks Patrol and the new structure has improved the response to low-level crime and antisocial behaviour.  The areas covered by the street warden team also changed so that wardens patrol areas of the borough with the highest levels of antisocial behaviour. Wardens now cover areas identified through analysis as having significant levels of antisocial behaviour and higher levels of need.

To tackle and prevent burglary, there have been extra police patrols in hotspot areas and more than 500 older and disabled people had home security checks in the last year through the Safe as Houses scheme.  In addition, to reduce the likelihood of re-offending, work is ongoing to ensure all prolific and priority offenders (PPOs) receive a post conviction ASBO with a condition not to associate with other PPOs. Together with other work these actions have helped reduce the number of burglary victims by 20 per cent. The skills and experience of private businesses’ security staff are also successfully used in partnership – such as the night time economy or the radio scheme, which expanded during 2008, to address shoplifting and other crimes against businesses.

Kensington and Chelsea – tackling crime and anti-social behaviour

As a result of local services working together and the effective use of uniformed officers there are significant and lasting falls in crime in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Most types of crimes are reducing in the area including burglary , theft from cars,  violence and knife crimes.

Joint working with the police has included:

• funding to enable the number of PCSOs in every ward in the borough to be, at least doubled to six – in some wards there are ten, with very positive feedback from residents
• appointing four council Safer Neighbourhood Managers  to work alongside Safer Neighbourhood Teams (SNTs) and make sure that issues needing council attention got a quick response
• council funding for

• motorbikes to help catch criminals on scooters or motorbikes who snatch valuables from passers-by
• forensic equipment to increase the chances of capturing useful information at a crime scene to help identify and successfully prosecute criminals
• buttonhole cameras for use in covert operations to catch drug dealers
• a joint police and council target hardening service that secures the homes of vulnerable residents.

Enforcement campaigns and measures to reduce reoffending include:

• multi-agency joint enforcement operations where an area is filled for a day or two at a time with enforcement staff from as many different agencies as possible working together to tackle offending behaviour.
• Making intensive efforts to make Community Payback work in the borough. One of the SNOs has a team of offenders doing clear ups across the borough. Most recently they cleared snow from the homes of vulnerable people.
• a multi-agency protocol for dealing with street drinkers that doesn’t just  move drinkers on or focus on arrest.  Outreach services are available to help tackle the problems street drinkers have. Areas are made less ‘attractive’ to street drinkers, for example taking away walls for them to sit on. Work is contiuning with local off licences to discourage them from selling strong alcohol to known street drinkers.  A borough wide controlled drinking zone has also been introduced, making it an offence to continue drinking when told to stop by a police officer or PCSO.
• a multi-agency protocol for closing down crack houses. This has proved very successful and enabled public landlords to move swiftly and close down such establishments at the same time as supporting what is usually a very vulnerable tenant being preyed on by unscrupulous drug dealers.
• the introduction of the Drug Intervention Programme (DIP). DIP offenders are those caught up in a vicious cycle of drug taking and criminal activity. By motivating and preparing them for the challenge of treatment DIP offers them the opportunity to kick the habit and rebuild their lives.

Preventative measures are also in place such as:

• securing vulnerable properties to prevent burglaries. This usually involves improving locks on doors and windows and, where necessary, replacing weak doors. The service, which uses trusted private contractors, also works with public and private landlords to secure the front entrance doors to properties in multiple occupation. The team also provide enhanced security for vulnerable members of the community, for example victims of domestic violence or race or homophobic crime.
• drawing attention to the dangers of using cannabis.  A particularly effective initiative was a competition for schools (including the Pupil Referral Unit) and youth groups to develop a poster for a major anti-cannabis campaign and to produce a play or film on the same subject. The quality of the posters produced was very high and the winning entry formed an important part of the campaign.
• The Information Exchange Scheme (IES), a groundbreaking initiative in partnership with the London Borough of Camden and the Greater London Authority, draws together information about crime and antisocial behaviour from a wide range of different agencies and enables the results to be analysed and mapped so that complete profiles of hotspot areas can be developed.  This, in turn, enables the police and other agencies to focus their efforts on these hotspot areas. The council is now looking at the second stage of this initiative to make information available to local residents on what is happening in their area.

Why it works

The following are key success factors identified within the case study examples:

• Strong partnerships incorporating a range of partners with a shared vision at both the strategic and operational level
• The willingness of a range of partners to share responsibility for the agenda

• Workforce development so that the approaches to tackling crime and anti-social behaviour are mainstreamed throughout all partners and service areas.

• Incorporation of crime and disorder into wider issues such as regeneration and safeguarding
• Horizon scanning so that partners can target their limited pooled / aligned resources towards identified needs (including communities’ issues)
• Community engagement including involvement in identifying the problem and developing the solution
• Evaluation of activity to see what works and whether plans need to change
• The ability to deal with real-time issues alongside strategic planning
• Showing communities the results and showing that all partners are engaged in dealing with their problems
• Building relationships between staff in different agencies that continue after short-term project work has finished

References and further reading

Audit Commission CAA information

Oneplace – The site includes CAA results for each area, of different local public services and a wide range of information on how these public services are performing.

Trafford

Liverpool Citysafe

Camden Community Safety

Kensington and Chelsea Community Safety

Download as PDF: Comprehensive Area Assessment Green Flags-Domestic violence, sexual violence and prostitution

Comprehensive Area Assessment green flags show outstanding achievements or improvements, or an innovation that is likely to be successful within a local area.  In the first round of CAA assessments several areas received green flags for their approach to domestic violence, sexual violence and prostitution.  This case study covers the innovative work of the Devon Against Domestic Violence and Abuse Partnership, Ipswich’s Joint Agency Strategy Group to tackle prostitution, Camden’s Safer Streets team, Kensington and Chelsea’s Domestic Violence Management Committee and Liverpool’s seasonal awareness campaign on sexual assaults in the city centre.

Essential knowledge

Comprehensive Area Assessment, or CAA, is an assessment of local public services in England. It examines how well councils are working together with other public bodies to meet the needs of the people they serve. It’s a joint assessment made by a group of six independent watchdogs.  Assessments provide a snapshot of each area, and act as a catalyst for improvement by identifying where more effort is needed or where exceptional improvement may help others learn.  CAA reports performance against the national indicator set and focuses on indicators that areas have selected as priorities, making an assessment of current delivery and future prospects against those priorities.

Each area across England has been independently assessed by six inspectorates. These assessments say how well local public services are delivering results for local people and how likely these are to improve in future. Area assessments do not have an overall score or rating. To provide a clear indication of either significant concerns about future improvement or to highlight exceptional performance or improvement, red and green flags have been used. Green flags show outstanding achievements or improvements, or an innovation that is likely to be successful.

Tackling domestic violence, sexual violence and prostitution can help address the following national indicators:

• NI 15 Serious violent crime
• NI 17 Perceptions of anti-social behaviour
• NI 20 Assault with injury crime rate
• NI 21 Dealing with local concerns about anti-social behaviour and crime issues by the local council and police
• NI 23 Perceptions that people in the area treat one another with respect and consideration
• NI 26 Specialist support to victims of a serious sexual offence
• NI 27 Understanding of local concerns about anti-social behaviour and crime issues by the local council and police
• NI 32 Repeat incidents of domestic violence
• NI 34 Domestic violence – murder

What works?

Devon Against Domestic Violence and Abuse (ADVA) Partnership

The Against Domestic Violence and Abuse (ADVA) Partnership over the last eight years has spearheaded work to tackle domestic violence and abuse and has been one of the major successes under Devon Strategic Partnership. Its vision is to “Increase the safety of victims of domestic violence and abuse in Devon.”

ADVA has now firmly established services which focus on all three aspects of domestic violence: survivors, perpetrators and children. Most of these services are delivered by the voluntary and community sectors as consultation with survivors has consistently delivered the message that this is the mode of delivery they prefer. Work is still required to develop responses within the statutory sector as many of those affected will be accessing services as a result of domestic abuse but not declaring that as the reason, for example admissions to A&E, attendance at GP surgeries.

Success has been based on the impetus given by both rounds of Local Public Service Agreements to develop a multi-agency domestic violence partnership, strategy and funding. The contributing partner agencies, and some time limited pump-priming grants, have created an ADVA budget which collectively has enabled the development of the following vital services in Devon. This has seen a rise in the multi-agency pooled budget from 2001/02 level of £50,000 (approximate) to £2,103,700 in 2009/10.

From the ADVA budget funds the following extensive community based services:

• Outreach support services for women survivors of domestic violence and abuse in each district (eight districts).
• County-wide support service for male survivors (Men Safe).
• Three REPAIR community family intervention programmes geographically covering the county. This provides direct work with self and agency referred male perpetrators, alongside support to their partners and children. This is a unique programme to identify the cost/benefit and other benefits of early intervention family-based work, which was initially funded partly by the Government Invest to Save programme via Home Office and partly by the EU Daphne Programme. Its success has led to it now being funded locally as part of ADVA core activity.
• Child support workers within the three women’s refuges in Devon and in local communities providing specialist support to children and young people who live with domestic violence and abuse. A particularly vulnerable group supported are young adults 14 to 25-year-olds.
• The development and delivery of multi-agency training courses to improve practitioner awareness and skills in direct work with all those affected by domestic violence issues. Over 6,000 front-line workers have received this training to date.
• The development of an employer policy supported by training for staff and 15 Domestic Violence and Abuse contacts to provide support to colleagues experiencing domestic violence.
• Establishment of four Independent Domestic Violence Advisers (IDVAs) working to the Multi-agency Risk Assessment Conferences (MARACs). These deal with those cases assessed at the highest risk of repeat and serious victimisation (approximately 750 women a year).
• Establishing an IDVA to work with the three Specialist Domestic Violence Courts within Devon, making the county one of the few in the country with full SDVC coverage. This is showing improved success in dealing with cases in the criminal justice system.
• Introduction of the Modus database for case management, as one of the first in the country that will allow better monitoring of victims and perpetrators.
• Establishment of the SEEDS Devon group for survivors of DV, based on good practice in Somerset, which is a vital link in ensuring that services are sensitive to their needs and based on what they say.
• Delivering 25 courses a year of a 15 fifteen-week pattern-changing programme for groups of women survivors to become empowered and to develop skills to increase safety.
• Establishment of an emergency fund to support migrant women, because they cannot get housing benefit when in a refuge.
• Strategic co-ordination of all districts’ work through ADVA Partnership working with Crime & Disorder Reduction Partnerships and Domestic Violence Forums.
• Every year ADVA has invested in publicity (newspaper, television, radio) to raise the profile of its services in Devon. Additionally it has run seven conferences or large-scale events since 25 November 2002.

Ipswich

Following the murder of five young women in Suffolk who all worked as street prostitutes in Ipswich, a multi-agency group – the Joint Agency Strategy Group (JASG) – was set up to develop and implement a strategy with five key aims initially:

• identifying the extent of the street prostitution problem in Ipswich
• developing routes out of prostitution – a multi-agency approach, tailored to the individual
• tackling demand: deterring those who create demand and designing environments that prevent prostitution
• prevention: early intervention and preventing young people from being abused through sexual exploitation
• community intelligence: understanding the extent of the problem and the impact on the local community.

A sixth strand has recently been added around ‘coercive adults’ which reflects the need to identify as early as possible, those young people being manipulated into to the sex industry by adults.

The JASG, made up of senior officers from organisations including Ipswich Borough Council, Suffolk Police, Suffolk County Council, Suffolk Primary Care Trust, Suffolk Probation Area, Suffolk Mental Health Partnership, Suffolk Drug and Alcohol Action Team and voluntary organisations, was pulled together quickly with the support of local authority leaders, chief executives and the chief constable. Assigning senior officers meant the JASG could make decisions and commit resources quickly,

A number of actions have been implemented to deal with the issues:

§  A dedicated multi-agency team enables regular and sustained contact with women working as street prostitutes. The team is made up of a social worker, support worker, police and a probation officer, all of whom work together to tackle the health and well-being issues faced by the women.  The team has adopted a case conference response to ensure that planning routes out of prostitution incorporates all of the identified needs of the individual.

• Providing help to leave prostitution including:

o   help to get access to housing and then maintain their tenancies. A recent development has been an extended Emergency Direct Access Beds service, which houses people for up to three weeks while longer-term accommodation is being found. Also bed and breakfast rooms are funded where direct access beds are not suitable..

• Domestic violence is a continued barrier to getting out of prostitution – this becomes obvious when ‘partners’ go into prison, as women are more fully engaged with the team. Women are referred to Multi-Agency Risk Assessment Conferences (MARAC), and they are also given information about leaving a violent situation.
• Women can access treatment for their drink and drug issues, by referral to the drugs treatment services in the area, including those from the voluntary sector. This enables the women to receive methadone prescriptions and access to counselling services, and other structured interventions ranging from education opportunities to employment.
• They are supported to register with GPs and keep health appointments, as their health is often poor. In addition, four women have been given a full set of dentures – something that may seem inconsequential, but which has greatly improved the women’s self-esteem.

Tackling demand has helped to improve the well-being of the women, and of the community as a whole. Covert police patrols complemented by high visibility patrols are regularly in operation. The latter monitor activity and enforce traffic restrictions, as well as provide reassurance for the community. CCTV support intelligence work and automatic number-plate recognition (ANPR) systems.  To date, 138 kerb-crawlers have been arrested, with 131 receiving cautions and six being charged to court. Only two of these individuals have returned to kerb-crawling in the area.

The multi-agency team has pulled together resources to target young people who are at risk of sexual exploitation. This enables the partnership to tackle issues of health and well-being at an early stage.  Key staff have undertaken training to help them identify vulnerable young people. Fifty one  young people aged between 13 and 17 have been identified as either being at risk or being abused through sexual exploitation. Funding for sessional support workers has helped three of these young people. A children and young people’s co-ordinator supports staff working with these young people.  Work is taking place with young people to raise awareness of these issues directly with young people, alongside the Red Rose Chain Theatre Company, in order to promote health and well-being.

The response from residents has been positive. Community representatives have been involved in developing the strategy, and understanding the community impact enabled the steering group to respond appropriately to local residents’ needs. Regular public meetings keep residents informed and hear their views, and residents are represented on the strategy implementation group.  In response to community concerns, schemes such as the installation of new lights in alleyways and alley gating are considered.

Work in Ipswich continues to evolve and change as more experience is gained and new challenges encountered.

Camden

Sex workers are an area of street activity targeted by the Camden ‘Safer Streets Team’ (SST).  The work is undertaken through outreach shifts, including joint shifts with New Horizons Youth Centre outreach workers.  Camden Council commissioned New Horizons to work with difficult to engage client groups such as sex workers.  All street active clients are discussed at the various Tasking and Targeting (T&T) meetings held throughout the borough, which are attended by a number of statutory agencies and service providers such as agencies that run drop-in sessions for sex workers such as Women @ The Well.  A case plan, with timescales, is agreed for all clients.

In dealing with street active clients, Camden follows an antisocial behaviour laddered approach whereby initially clients are offered services, or signposting and/or diversion if they do not have a Camden connection, and at all times are given advice about the possible enforcement options if they continue the behaviour.  If a client refuses to engage, or accepts services but does not reduce their street activity, then they may become an enforcement target for either the police or the council’s Street Wardens.  At that point an anti-social behaviour warning letter would be served and the Safer Streets team would meet with the client to offer the support necessary to stop them from being street active.  This includes referrals into accommodation, scripting, drug and alcohol treatment and mental health services, plus assistance with benefits and other softer outcomes such as support in becoming Big Issue sellers.  The Safer Streets Team would also offer the client an Acceptable Behaviour Agreement (ABA), either yellow or red depending on the level of activity, the signing of which would be attended by representatives from the Council and Police. The meetings continue until the client no longer comes to notice, or if the activity does not stop, enforcement follows.

In addition to the targeting of clients, T&T partners also focus on specific areas and sites.  For example, following reports from residents of an increase in sex working, the T&T group undertook joint work at Agar Grove.  The police Safer Neighbourhood Team received extra funding to do additional shifts to target the sex working taking place in the early hours of the morning. The Partnership also funded signs that were displayed in the area warning against sex working.

Camden provides drug treatment and wraparound support to sex workers through the Drug Intervention Programme (DIP) and the Camden Crack Treatment Team (CCTT).  Camden DIP has a specialist prison link worker in HMP Holloway who works with a high proportion of women offenders with a sex work background.  The link worker identifies clients while they are still in prison custody and develops a post release plan to support the client’s resettlement on release.  When a client is released the link worker carries on working with them, making sure they have appropriate housing, benefits, healthcare, access to drug treatment and other support.  The CCTT is a new service introduced in October 2008 to work with crack users who have never accessed drug treatment.  They identify people through street outreach and drop-ins, and work with them for three months to stabilise them so they can go onto to work with mainstream drug treatment and/or specialist services.

Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea

In 2006 some concern was expressed that not enough was being done locally to prevent domestic violence and provide support for victims. The Council responded by establishing a high level forum (the Domestic Violence Management Committee) to investigate the issues and find solutions. This involved various Council Cabinet Members and senior officers from a variety of agencies.

Several new services were commissioned including:

the establishment of a Multi Agency Risk Assessment Conference (MARAC) that focuses partnership attention on the most serious domestic violence cases and

• a domestic violence advocacy service provided by an independent organisation to provide a 24 hour a day service to women suffering domestic violence.
• Alongside this and other measures, the police have developed their positive arrest policy, which is arresting perpetrators when they are called to deal with a report of domestic violence.

Liverpool

Promotion of a safer night-time economy is a key component of the overarching regeneration strategy for Liverpool.  A recent 2009 alcohol awareness campaign focused on raising awareness of key messages to highlight alcohol related sexual assault, encouraging 18 to 25-year-old women in Liverpool to adopt more responsible attitudes and behaviours towards alcohol and reducing the amount of alcohol related sexual assaults.  The campaign involved:

• radio and press campaigns
• safety messages sent via Bluetooth in key areas at weekends
• handing out personal attack alarms and branded waterproof ponchos
• having a ‘hit squad’ present to provide advice to those out at weekends, including targeting those arriving in the city centre or coming home from work parties through presence at the city centre transport hubs.

Why it works

The following factors have been identified as key success factors across the case study examples:

• A multi-agency response brings joint ownership of the issues and solutions.
• Senior officer commitment brings people who have the ability to make decisions and commit resources.

• It is important to locate services as part of core service provision, rather than them being seen as extras or add ons.
• Engaging with service users has been at the heart of shaping services.
• Raising awareness of the significance of issues such as domestic violence and prostitution is a vital factor in gaining commitment.
• Developing services need to recognise the different needs of within the community.

Part 2 of this helpful study will be shared on Friday, 9 July 2010.

References & Further Reading

Audit Commission CAA information

Oneplace – The site includes CAA results for each area, of different local public services and a wide range of information on how these public services are performing.

Devon Against Domestic Violence and Abuse

Ipswich Prostitution Strategy

Camden Community Safety

Kensington and Chelsea Community Safety

Liverpool Citysafe

Download as PDF: Devon County council – Knowledge Hub Case Study

Starting with the development of a social media policy Devon County Council has been using social media to innovatively engage with young people including pregnant teenage mothers, to enhance their corporate and library websites and to improve internal collaboration. An internal business networking pilot project that is estimated to have made savings of £15,500 and significantly reduced the volume of email traffic would, if applied across the Council, save £750,000 each year. While Devon have been improving the social media skills of staff, they would like to use the Knowledge Hub to further improve learning across the organisation (which has 23,000 staff delivering 800 different services) and to provide aggregated information for specific professional groups such as social workers.

Background to Knowledge Hub and use of social media in Local Government

Social media allows users to share information and opinions and to interact online in a many-to-many model of communication. Social media applications involve the building of online communities to encourage participation. A number of new social media applications have emerged in the last five years including social networking sites such Facebook and Twitter and content sharing websites such as YouTube. Usage has grown very rapidly. To exploit these new opportunities for communication and interaction Local Authorities are increasingly using social media tools with one third now using Twitter (35%) and RSS news feeds (32%) and one sixth using Facebook (17%) and YouTube (16%).

To further develop their online learning offer IDeA proposes to develop a Knowledge Hub that builds of the success of IDeA’s Communities of Practice which have 55,000 members. The Knowledge Hub will allow local government to produce and capture its own knowledge more directly and bring together more relevant content sources including blogs and twitter feeds.

Devon County Council’s use of social media

Devon County Council aspires to make the best use of the available technology and innovations to improve the way they do business. This includes the use of social media to communicate, reach out and interact with the different communities they service. While their approach to date has been experimental, the Council is now in the process of developing a corporate communications and engagement strategy that includes social media.

While Devon County Council have taken a bottom up, active learning approach to piloting the use of various social media tools, the starting point has been the development of a corporate social media policy and user guidelines. The guidelines help managers and employees to consider a range of issues before participating in or developing any new social media application and help them to make the most of the tools available while protecting themselves and the Council. The guidelines cover:

• The personal responsibilities when making use of social media
• The professional responsibilities when making use of social media as a Devon County Council employee
• How to act as a contributor or publisher
• How to act as moderator for an online community

Working with a youth participation worker Devon County Council undertook research and completed an initial pilot using Facebook and Bebo to improve their interaction with young people (see below). As well as developing new ways to promote their youth services and engage with young people the learning from this pilot was used to reinforce changes in corporate policy.

Devon’s Approach to Youth Participation using Social Networking

As many young people were already networking using social media Devon County Council wanted to explore whether this was a new way to engage young people in the promotion and evaluation of the Council’s youth services.

To research young people’s views on participation through social networking sites, Devon County Council attended Kongomana, an annual youth festival. Some 94% of young people said they would be interested in engaging with a social networking site for participation and 80% said they would be likely to share opportunities with their friends. While young people would welcomed social networking participation opportunities they wanted safe, formal and official websites. In the end Devon County Council developed a new website, Get Ur Voice Heard which was linked to Facebook and Bebo pages and connected to the local Youth Parliament.

As part of the youth participation project Devon also operated a private Facebook group for teenage pregnant mothers. Rather than having to meet in a more formal setting at a specific time the approach allowed flexible engagement around parental commitments with time for reflection outside the confines of a meeting. As the approach was in many ways a meeting that could go on for a week it was found to be liberating and empowering for the users.

Devon County Council has also used social media in a number of other ways:

• Devon County Council has integrated their website with Twitter and Facebook, use Vimeo to share their videos and offer RSS newsfeeds for planning information, news and webcasts.
• Devon’s libraries use Twitter, flickr and Facebook to promote their services and run an annual competition to identify images from their archives.
• Devon County Council’s CEO produces an internal blog and podcasts.
• Devon County Council has also completed an internal pilot of business networking and collaboration using social software (bluekiwi) to consider the business case of the product as a learning tool.

What have the impacts of social media been?

Devon County Council believes that the use of social media tools has been valuable but they have not yet been able to fully quantify the impacts and the benefits. In terms of usage Devon County Council has nearly 1,600 followers on Twitter, has 69 fans on Facebook and has uploaded 9 videos to Vimeo. The Council has noted positive responses from residents around the conversation developed using Twitter and the local elections increased usage of social media.

With about 800 different services the Council has concluded that they need to engage users around specific services or initiatives so not to overload users with information. For example Devon’s libraries have their own Twitter, Facebook and flickr pages.

The Council has found that externally their use of social media has been complementary to their existing communications channels rather than replacements. Additional staff resource over and above that required for just publishing website content has been required to maintain these new channels and the conversations that often take place outside office hours.

However, internally the Council believe that social media tools can replace current ways of working. For example, the Council’s internal pilot of a social media platform replaced the outlook distribution lists that were used for sending information to teams and groups. The new approach allowed staff to keep track of a conversation, join and leave when they wanted to and to be able to see the entire chain of comments. As a result the volume of emails fell from 400-500 to 70-80 across a team of eight people and the quality of the conversation was improved. Further savings were also achieved by the team due to a reduction in physical face-to-face meetings. The Council has made a conservative estimate that the reduction in email and meetings helped the team to save £15,500 a year. If applied across the whole Council the time saved when looking for information is estimated to be worth over £750,000 each year.

The Council also believes that these tools can help with Freedom of Information requests as, for example, searching is much easier across the social media platform than across many individual mailboxes, where information has often been archived or deleted.

By using externally hosted software Devon County Council has been able to minimise the requirements placed on their internal IT team. For a social media pilot that lasted 11 months and included 250 users there were no calls to the IT help desk.

By working with their service directorates Devon County Council has been learning about social media applications and changing policy to become more explicit about the business risks and issues. They are also learning about what values, measures and outputs are required for a sustainable engagement and what are the resource implications of using social media.

What have been the barriers and challenges in using social media?

The biggest initial challenge was developing the skills and competencies of staff so they were able to have a conversation on a site like Twitter. To get value from using social media the Council have been developing an online corporate voice and persona for their different services. Online participation skills have been developed internally first to identify the training needs before engaging in a more formal and external civic debate across a large county.

Other barriers and challenges have included:

• The limitations imposed by the use of Internet Explorer Version 6 as the default corporate browser. To make effective use of all websites staff have had to be given access to other browsers such as Firefox and Opera. In the longer term if some of the piloted social networking software was adopted by the Council there would be a need to integrate login and authentication approaches.
• The need to raise awareness of the potential for social media in some service directorates and across their management teams.
• The need to have the staff resource to maintain the new channels such as Twitter to make them sustainable in the long term.

How is learning and sharing of good practice undertaken?

Devon County Council would like to improve their sharing of good practice and learning. They would like to have a better formal documentation of learning points and use business networking as a way to learn while they are doing a project rather than through reflective learning at the end of the project. Real time access to learning from, for example, other social workers around the country would be a huge benefit for the social care workers in Devon.

The Council’s approach to social media training was organic. An informal “social media forum” was set up to allow staff to share learning and to ask each other about the best ways to use particular tools. There were no formal social media training packages available at that time.

The Future: How the Knowledge Hub could help Devon County Council

Currently it is difficult for an officer to get hold of the latest news, connect to other councils, obtain Local Government analysis and source industry issues for their specialist area (e.g. Corporate IT Management). Devon County Council would like the Knowledge Hub to bring together a diverse collection of information from a wide range content sources such as blogs, bookmarks, news cuttings, video and online conversations and filter them on to a dashboard. It is about bringing together the wider body of knowledge for specific professionals.

A challenge for the Knowledge Hub will be its ability to engage a organisation which is the scale of Devon County Council with 23,000 employees but with only 6,500 on their corporate network. The software will need to cope with any email address and be available through other mobile devices and outside work hours.

For the future Devon County Council are looking into how they could develop an online Digital Passport training package which would cover risk management, online media training, community management and online facilitation/moderation, evaluation and measures and social media tools (such as Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, flickr and blogs) all with a focus on business usage. Linked to the training but also available separately, Devon are considering whether they should develop good practice guides around particular social media sites and tools.

Further Information

Carl Haggerty,
Enterprise Architect, Business Solutions and Innovations,
Devon County Council

T: 07971 322968

E: carl.haggerty@devon.gov.uk

Devon CC website
Devon CC on Twitter
Devon CC on Facebook
Devon CC’s videos on Vimeo
Devon libraries flickr site
Bluekiwi
Get Ur Voice Heard and linked Facebook pages
IDeA’s Communities of Practice
Knowledge Hub