Safer Sutton Partnership (SSP) was the first partnership to create a fully integrated police and local authority team under single line management. The process involved the co-location and amalgamation of the Sutton’s Police and Community Unit and the London Borough of Sutton’s Safer Communities Team. The SSP and its services are now delivered or commissioned from a single point in Sutton town centre.

Bringing senior managers together from the police and local authority has led to better performance management. There have also been savings from joined-up strategic planning, rationalised meetings, voluntary sector commissioning and integrated services. In 2006/07, the SSP was awarded national Beacon status in recognition of its innovative approach to partnership working and integrated service delivery.

The issue

Safer Sutton Partnership (SSP) was the first partnership to create a fully integrated police and local authority team under single line management. The process involved the co-location and amalgamation of the Sutton’s Police and Community Unit and the London Borough of Sutton’s Safer Communities Team. In 2006/07, the SSP was awarded national Beacon status in recognition of its innovative approach to partnership working and integrated service delivery.

There was already a close working relationship between the police and local authority before the SSP was formally established. The fact that Sutton had the second lowest crime rate in London at the time was a testimony to the strength of this relationship.

The trigger for introducing integrated services was a shared aspiration to make the borough an even safer place to live. Both partners recognised that community safety was a key concern to local people and both wanted to build a greater level of trust with the local community. The SSP’s main aims were therefore not only to make Sutton safer but also to reduce the fear of crime. This, they believed would best be achieved through an integrated approach to community safety.

According to SSP’s Partnership Plan for 2008-2011: “Although Sutton is already one of London’s safest borough’s with statistically low levels of crime, a key measure of success will be continuing to enhance the perception of safety and deliver increased community confidence within the borough. Initiatives to improve community confidence are therefore a recurring theme.”

The partnership’s innovative approach to service delivery also meets many of the objectives in the government’s police reform programme ‘Building Communities, Beating Crime’. For example:

• Making police services and councils more accountable to the public
• Police working with local authorities to help the public be and feel safer
• Informing the public about what’s been done to make them feel safer
• Involving the public in decisions about how these services are delivered

What they did

Origins

The Safer Sutton Partnership Service (SSPS) was officially inaugurated in 2005. At its inception it brought together 60 council staff involved in community safety and 80 borough police officers to work together from a shared base.

The significance of this initiative was highlighted by the Metropolitan Police Commissioner at the time, who at the launch, said “for the first time police and council staff are working alongside one another under a single management structure, in pursuit of shared aims and objectives. What is happening in Sutton is an outstanding example of partnership in action. The borough’s brave new approach could become the model for the rest of the country”.

Objectives

The partnership’s expectation was that by creating a more joined-up service, resources could be deployed and managed more efficiently and effectively. This would minimise the chance of matters being referred across the two agencies and enable a quicker, more coordinated response. As well as addressing key local concerns such as anti-social behaviour, more joint working and planning was expected to lead to a better understanding of cultures between the police and local authority.

The anticipated benefits of service co-location included:

• A single point of contact for all community safety issues
• Information-sharing and better problem-solving
• Improved communication at all levels
• Quicker and more effective response to incidents
• Greater accountability to councillors and local people
• Service structure

The SSPS model involved the co-location of a number of key police and local authority services at a dedicated building (a police station) in Sutton town centre. The first services to be offered from this centre included:

• Drug and alcohol abuse services
• Neighbourhood wardens
• Parks police
• Domestic violence services
• Police safer neighbourhood teams
• Special constables
• Police volunteers
• Schools and training liaison officers
• Police and local authority licensing departments

Alongside these services, the council’s CCTV monitoring was located in a new integrated operations room at the police station. More recent service additions have included the council’s emergency planning and preventing violent extremism functions.

Management and organisation structure

An early priority in developing the SSPS was to find a suitable candidate to head the partnership and its services. The post was advertised to civilians and police officers in a joint recruitment exercise and resulted in the appointment of Police Superintendent Warren Shadbolt.

The head of the partnership is responsible for both police and local government staff and is jointly managed by/accountable to the council’s chief executive and the borough commander. Joint protocols between the Metropolitan Police and the London Borough of Sutton cover the staff management between the two organisations.

The essential element of Sutton’s co-location model is that first, second and third tier managers responsible for delivering or commissioning police and the council’s community safety services are based together in a single building. The main strategic forum for bringing senior managers together is the fortnightly meeting, chaired by Sutton’s borough commander.

Co-location has made closer working possible and, in some cases, the amalgamation of services. Council community safety staff and police staff work together as part of the partnership arrangement and under a single management structure. For example, a police chief inspector has been responsible for the council’s neighbourhood wardens and council security staff, while council staff manage police colleagues in the support and commissioning teams.

Joint working

A shared approach to problem solving has been the cornerstone of SSP’s co-location initiative. At an operational level, weekly ‘problem solving’ meetings are convened to address and resolve priority issues across the borough. These inter-agency forums include not only police and council staff based at the police station but other partners including the London and Fire Rescue Service, the Sutton Housing Partnership and occasionally the probation service.

The problem solving meetings provide an opportunity to share intelligence and identify a lead agency to tackle emerging issues ranging from environmental problems to licensing issues. The brief covers crime, disorder and antisocial behaviour as well as community safety issues such as neighbour disputes, race/hate crime and harassment. For example, when a series of linked burglaries targeting vulnerable older people took place, the partnership was able to respond effectively by taking coordinated action.

In addition to core services, a number of mechanisms can be used to address problems raised at the meetings. These include rapid deployment cameras, community payback events and a small capital budget for physical security measures.

Community engagement

The SSP’s work has been supplemented by the introduction of a borough-wide safer neighbourhood approach with ward panels in each of the 18 safer neighbourhood areas. This helps two-way communication between the police, council, partners and residents.

Through its engagement with the community, the SSPS can identify emerging issues and identify potential gaps in the knowledge and intelligence base, particularly in relation to community concerns. In this way, both the police and council have a better understanding of local issues and can coordinate their activity more effectively. By developing a greater dialogue with the community, SSPS is concerned not only with gathering and acting on local intelligence but also restoring public confidence in police and council services at a time when fear of crime is still one of the most common concerns in the borough.

Fear of crime is being tackled using a sophisticated model developed by the SSP in partnership with the University of Cardiff. Using information from Intelligence and Neighbourhood Security Interviews to complement residents’ survey data, the SPSS can build a picture of perceived problems matched against recorded incidents. The information is then used to prioritise activity that ensures that the community sees that action is being taken by a range of organisations in their area.

The impact

Increased dialogue

Co-location of services has led to a significant increase in levels of communications between the local authority and police service. This in turn has led to greater co-operation and joint action between the two partners. For example, there are now regular meetings involving police and council staff that go all the way down the hierarchies. These include fortnightly meetings of senior managers and weekly problem solving meetings. The informal contacts that result from co-location are also having an impact on improved partnership working and enabling connections to be made.

More effective working

Bringing senior managers from the police and local authority to work together is giving greater credibility to the process and ensuring that joint action is taken where needed. According to the SSP Performance Manager:“…having the backing at senior levels brings greater clarity and more resources to priorities and problems, particularly dealing with domestic violence. ….it provides a golden thread that runs all the way down to street level”. Having senior managers together in one place has also led to a cross fertilisation of skills.

Improved performance management

As part of the co-location exercise, a police analyst now works alongside a local authority analyst to provide consistent data capture, analysis and distribution. This is enabling better performance management, outcome monitoring and service planning. Another joint innovation resulting from co-location is the creation of an integrated borough operations function delivering a real time intelligence and proactive task management capability to operational units.

Greater rationalisation of resources

Policing of parks and open spaces in the borough was formerly undertaken by the local authority parks police service. Deployment of the council’s team of seven was inflexible and expensive and the parks police were not always available at peak demand times due to operational limitations. Their limited powers meant they faced a loss of confidence by the community in their ability to tackle anti social behaviour, particularly in relation to parks and open spaces.

In response to increasing public concern, the council wound down its parks police service and replaced it with a police-resourced safer parks police team, financed by the local authority and managed by SSP. Two safer parks teams are now deployed across the borough for longer hours and for less money than the original neighbourhood based council service. This re-organisation acknowledged that public demands for policing of the parks could be more effectively delivered in terms of cost, volume, supply and outcomes through the use of warranted police officers and PCSOs. For example, as part of a routine check on a white van, the Sutton Safer Parks Team discovered a large quantity of cannabis. This resulted in arrests and closure of one of the biggest cannabis factories to be uncovered in Sutton in recent times.

In another recent development, the local authority has disbanded its neighbourhood warden service and reinvested in a police-provided anti-social behaviour unit. This is also being managed through the SSPS and, likewise, is expected to ensure better outcomes for residents whilst providing better value for money.

Achieving savings

There is hard evidence to show that co-location and rationalisation of services has resulted in savings to the SSP. Estimates of savings for the past two years are:

• 2006/07 – £132,000
• 2007/08 – £170,000

The savings have come from a number of areas including joined-up strategic planning, rationalised meetings, voluntary sector commissioning, and integrated services. Further savings are expected to be achieved from the creation of a new and integrated communications hub that will serve both the police and local authority.

Communicating a consistent message

By working in partnership and sharing information about issues across the borough, a consistent message has been sent to the public about what is being done to make improvements to their neighbourhoods. For example, through the problem solving meetings, a ‘lead person’ is identified to deliver a ‘corporate’ response to demonstrate that the concern is being taken seriously. The emphasis on the customer ensures that resources and activities are targeted on the most important issues for residents and businesses.

Improved outcomes

Since co-location was first implemented, there is some evidence to suggest that the SSP is having a quantitative impact on meeting some of its objectives. For example:

• The 2007 borough wide MORI survey of Sutton residents shows a reduced fear of crime across all major types of crime. This is consistent with the findings from the Intelligence and Neighbourhood Security Interviews and ward panel priorities.
• The re-organisation of the parks police resulted in a fall of 10 per cent in the number of reported incidents of anti-social behaviour between 2006/07 and 2007/08. More significantly, the number of arrests was up nearly 15 fold during the same period.

Challenges, lessons

In the early stages of co-location, there were some challenges to planning and implementing integrated services. These included:

• Different targets and action planning cycles for police, local authority, internal departments and partner agencies
• Differences in cultural, structural and working practices between the police and local authority
• Differences in targets, definitions and problem identification making it hard to reach common agreement on which local problems should be tackled

Many of the initiatives that have accompanied co-location in Sutton have addressed these issues. For example, closer working through the fortnightly manager meetings has helped to break down cultural and structural barriers and the introduction of the problem solving process has enabled partners to reach consensus on priorities and targets. Having a police analyst working alongside a council analyst is enabling better performance management, outcome monitoring and service planning.

The lessons from Sutton suggest that co-location can only be successfully achieved if there is trust and understanding between partners and service providers. In the case of Sutton, this was already a hallmark of the relationship before the partnership was launched.

Another key ingredient to success is for partners to have shared objectives. For Sutton, one of the driving forces behind service integration has been the joint aspiration to instil public confidence in police and community safety services and to reduce the fear of crime in the borough.

Other factors favouring co-location include a strong senior lead to oversee the process and, at managerial level, having clearly defined roles specifying who does what and why. This needs to be balanced by good operational links on the ground. Having an effective joint communications strategy will ensure that a consistent message is sent to the public that their concerns are being taken seriously.

Data/evidence

Crime and community safety outcomes

Outcomes of relevance to the case study include the following:

• The 2007 borough wide MORI survey of Sutton residents shows a reduced fear of crime across all major types of crime. This is consistent with the findings from INSI and ward panel priorities.
• The British Crime Survey statistics show that there was a reduction in crime of nearly 10 per cent in Sutton between April 2007 and January 2008.
• The re-organisation of the parks police resulted in a fall of 10 per cent in the number of calls regarding anti-social behaviour between 2006/07 and 2007/08. More significantly, the number of arrests was up nearly 15 fold during the same period.
• As of December 2007, 568 individuals had engaged with structured drug treatment agencies (up 37 per cent on December 2005) and Sutton had achieved its milestone of increasing the number of problematic drug users ahead of schedule.
• Sutton has achieved its milestone in line with the government’s national drug strategy aim of increasing the numbers of problematic drug users in treatment by 100 per cent.
• Sutton’s drug treatment services have also been judged by the National Treatment Agency to be the most cost-effective in London with the borough being in the top ten performing areas for the number of drug users that are retained in treatment to a successful conclusion.

National Indicators being addressed by the Safer Sutton Partnership through the Sutton Local Area Agreement

• NI 15 Reducing the serious violent crime rate
• NI 16 Reducing the serious acquisitive crime rate
• NI 21 Dealing with local concerns about anti-social behaviour by the local council and police
• NI 34 Reducing repeat incidents of domestic violence

The second quarter monitoring report for 2008/09 suggests that there are no problems anticipated in meeting these targets in the LAA. The report also indicates that serious acquisitive crime (NI16) is down 19 per cent compared with last year.

Further information

The Safer Sutton Partnership Plan 2008-2011

The Audit Commission’s Corporate Assessment of the London Borough of Sutton November 2008 – highlight’s areas of good practice relating the Safer Sutton Partnership’s Service

Following the collapse of the steel industry and the growth of unemployment, Corby acquired the reputation of being the ‘yob capital of England’. In 2006 the council developed a Community Safety and Neighbourhood Management Team which operates through four local neighbourhood management teams across the borough. The council ensured the boundaries fitted with new Neighbourhood Policing Team boundaries established by Northamptonshire Police.

Each area has a Joint Action Group (JAG) which provides the opportunity for local communities to set priorities for the agencies, including the council, police and fire service. JAG on your Street is a small but important part of a strategic approach to neighbourhood management in Corby.

The issue

Before the opening of a huge steelworks in the 1930s, Corby was just a small village in Rockingham Forest, Northamptonshire. After the steelworks arrived, Corby grew quickly and was designated as a New Town. Growth continued through the 1950s and 60s and there was a huge influx of immigrants seeking work, many of whom were from Scotland. However during the 1970s and 1980s UK steel production declined and steelmaking production closed with 11,000 job losses.

Many areas of Corby suffer significant levels of deprivation across the full range of measures. Crime and anti-social behaviour feature particularly prominently in statistics. Perceptions of Corby are poor both locally and nationally.

In their 2006 report, Tackling Anti-Social Behaviour, the National Audit Office (NAO) used official data and crime figures to identify the towns with the worst behaving youngsters. The study showed that nationally, 17 per cent of the population perceived there were high levels of anti-social behaviour in 2005-06, up from 16 per cent for the previous two years.

In Corby, there were nearly 3,000 incidents of criminal damage per 100,000 people during the 2005-06 period, and half its residents believed anti-social behaviour was a big or fairly big problem. The national press branded Corby the ‘yob capital of Britain.’

The Daily Telegraph spoke to a resident of the Kingswood estate in 2006. It reportedly took the unlocking of two bolts, a chain and a Yale lock before Jane Colman could open her front door. “I’ve got five kids and I won’t let them out,” she said, before listing a whole range of crimes plaguing the area. “Arson, firebombs, cars being nicked, motorcycles roaring around, gangs, drunks. Yes, you could say perception of anti-social behaviour around here is high.”

Fear of crime became, and remains, a high priority for Corby Borough Council (CBC) and the Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnership (CDRP)

What they did

JAG on your Street is a small but important part of a strategic approach to neighbourhood management in Corby. Since 2006 Corby have introduced a neighbourhood management Structure, have redefined neighbourhood boundaries, and introduced area Joint Action Groups (JAGs). Most recently they have introduced Jag on your Street.

When CBC adopted their Neighbourhood Management Structure, the local strategic partnership (LSP) committed to a neighbourhood management approach to service delivery to support the work of the CDRP. Neighbourhood management in Corby involves three elements: coordination of service delivery, community engagement, and local governance.

Four neighbourhood management teams were developed. Three in urban areas and one in a rural area. CBC worked closely with Northamptonshire Police to ensure the team boundaries fitted with new Neighbourhood Policing Team boundaries. By Consulting with the community the new neighbourhood boundaries fitted with the natural community boundaries recognised by residents.

CBC now has a Community Safety and Neighbourhood Management Team led by the Head of Neighbourhood Pride. Within the structure there are 15 members of staff. Each area has a designated neighbourhood manager, with two neighbourhood wardens, a neighbourhood caretaker, an area based repairs team and generic housing officers. All posts are funded through mainstream council resources. Some areas share their neighbourhood team whereas others have dedicated staff according to need.

Each Joint Action Group (JAG) meets fortnightly to agree actions and monitor progress on neighbourhood priority. These priorities are set by the community every three months at open public meetings. Each of these area JAGs involves representatives of CBC service areas, Northamptonshire Police Safer Community Team, Tenants and Resident Association representatives and local councillors.

The four watches of Northamptonshire Fire and Rescue Service in Corby each have a responsibility to a neighbourhood. They attend the area JAG for their adopted area and contribute to the action plans. Northamptonshire County Council, the PCT and other partners attend as required to contribute to problem solving. The Council have appointed Community Safety officers with the responsibility of addressing antisocial behaviour in each neighbourhood. These Community Safety Officers are an integral part of the Community Safety and Neighbourhood Management Team. CBC also contributes to the costs of employing Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs).

A task list used at the area JAG meetings shows the priorities that have been identified by the community. Within each of these, tasks are identified and results recorded. For example, at the South Corby JAG on 2 June 2009, the task list showed the priorities that came from the 1 April public consultation as being litter/rubbish (138 votes), criminal damage (100 votes) and speeding (100 votes). Tasks scheduled included a series of walkabouts and focused working in the hotspot areas by wardens. Times and dates are recorded.

To maintain the partnership and ensure joint priorities reflect local needs, regular community meetings are held and information is gathered through meeting and talking to residents during patrols. All patrol staff complete “interaction cards which record and feed the information back to the area JAG.

The JAG on your street initiative was introduced to engage even more residents. Instead of asking people to come to organised meetings, JAG members go to meet residents on their street. They hear first hand what they can do to help improve residents’ quality of life. The first JAG on your Street was held in the South Neighbourhood area on the Kingswood estate. JAG meetings are held at times to suit residents or when intelligence points to a particular problem happening.

Staff, local residents and local councillors attend meetings. Flyers are sent out to inform residents about meetings two weeks before hand. Individual streets are discussed in detail and there is a walkabout to look at the problems. Any concerns the community have are brought up, recorded and fed to the relevant person to be dealt with usually through the area JAGs. The South area neighbourhood manager said that these JAGs “focus attention on live issues and “go to the heart of the problem.

One of the benefits of this approach is that those intent on damaging the community see significant numbers of residents confident enough to come out onto the streets and work with agency representatives. This is a powerful and overt message of unity. The initiative is valued by residents and also by their elected representatives. “The small number of people who cause the problems can see people talking to their community (Senior Neighbourhood Manager).

The issues that are raised vary and range from broken lighting to untidy gardens, graffiti or anti-social behaviour. In one area, there was a hotspot of litter and antisocial behaviour. Information was received about “problem youths on a school route. A JAG on your Street was held at a time when the children were going home from school. The group were able to talk to the young people and they could see the wardens, police and council officers. The litter was the full length of the parade and the JAG on your Street identified that the young people were going into the shops, coming out and dropping the litter. The JAG partners went in to talk to the shop managers and owners and talked to the young people themselves.

The impact

An effective working relationship has developed at neighbourhood level between council and police through shared boundaries. Wardens and PCSOs regularly conduct joint patrols in hotspot areas at relevant times. Moving closer to the community has increased the ability to gather useful intelligence and build a comprehensive understanding of local problems.

The priorities identified through the JAGs have become a focus for partners within each area. Tasking logs are maintained and monitored to assess progress. Community priorities have predominantly focused on “safer and cleaner issues. Motorcycle nuisance, youth’s activities, street drinking and fly tipping and litter have consistently featured in all neighbourhoods. Common priorities across all JAGs are passed on for discussion and strategic action in the CDRP.

To reduce graffiti many walls in hotspot areas have been painted colours sympathetic to their surroundings. Graffiti appearing on these walls are quickly over-painted by caretakers. It has been found that graffiti perpetrators give up after their writing has been repainted thee or four times. Our “we’ve got more paint than you or zero tolerance strategy seems to be working.

Ward members involved in JAGS have made significant contributions in a number of ways.

• Contributing resources made available to each member through the council’s Leadership Fund
• Their local knowledge has provided community intelligence
• Raising the profile of specific problems as and when appropriate
• Providing feedback mechanism to communities through their dialogue with constituents.

Barriers, challenges, lessons

The barriers, challenges and lessons relate to:

• Private landlords
• Overcoming communication barriers
• Using intelligence.

Social housing providers have been easy to engage and have worked with the JAGS.Private landlords have been much more difficult to engage and hold to account. It can be difficult to find out who they are and to contact them. This problem has been exacerbated by cheap Corby property prices proving attractive to buy to let landlords..

The Senior Neighbourhood Manager said that opening the lines of communication between service delivery partners and the community has been the most significant challenge to overcome and the most beneficial. As a consequence, everyone has been able justify allocating resources to this approach. The Home Office “weeks of action for instance made a really important contribution to the approach and were another way of gathering community views and delivering responses.

The access to improved intelligence has been critical. Compass, the partnership community profiling and problem solving resource for Northamptonshire, funded by top slicing the LSP budget, were able to provide analysis of the findings from the questionnaire used during the Kingswood Week of Action(so what difference did this make?). This analysis enablesneighbourhood management teams to be intelligence led and to feedback progress to the community.

The Community Safety and Neighbourhood Management Team emphasised that feeding back to residents was critical to success. The Senior Neighbourhood Manager says this must mean telling residents “what’s happening, what’s been addressed, how and why or why not. Currently the feedback process is being refined with the aim that individuals within communities that raise an issue can receive feedback personally.

Evidence and data

The JAG initiatives have fed in to a coordinated approach to tackling anti-social behaviour. There is an anti-social behaviour action group. The group is ensuring diversionary activities are occurring during peak offending, anti-social behaviour times. The group has mapped existing youth projects to understand current provision including times. Following the mapping exercise the group decided to provide a comprehensive programme of activities during the 6 week summer holidays. A gap was identified for 13-19 year olds. Analysis of statistics during the summer school holidays for the previous year highlighted the peak anti-social behaviour times between 6 and 9 pm so activities for 13-19 year olds were provided at these times. Activities were targeted at the antisocial behaviour hotspots identified through the JAG.

Analysis showed there was a significant reduction of antisocial behaviour in these places as a result and the programme was repeated again this year. An extension is being planned to cover all holidays and out of school periods.

A further partnership project was developed to tackle the complaint that “there is nothing to do around here by developing and publicising a website of youth activities. Detail from this is printed out and carried by patrolling staff and handed to young people as appropriate.

• In 2007/08 there were 1000 fewer victims of crime than the previous year
• There were 22 per cent fewer reported incidents of anti-social behaviour, 2200 fewer reported in past 12 months
• There has been a reduction in criminal damage of 14 per cent which means 300 fewer victims
• There has been a 41 per cent reduction in arson in Corby over the past three years.

The joint working approach is having an impact for all the partners involved. For instance at a recent JAG initiative 40 people were identified as not having smoke detectors so were referred to the fire service for a free home safety check. Thefir service would not otherwise have been able to assist these residents.

The most compelling evidence of impact is provided by the recently published Northamptonshire Neighbourhood survey, an independent countywide study in its second year of research. This year it found that in Corby 61 per cent agreed that the Council and Police were effectively tackling antisocial behaviour and 66 per cent were satisfied with their area.

Contact

Vicki Rockall – Community Safety Manager
Fred Scholey – Senior Neighbourhood Manager
Craig Spence – Area Neighbourhood Manager

telephone: 01536 464 647

Address:

Neighbourhood Management and Community Safety Team
Corby Borough Council
1st Floor Deene House
New Post Office Square
Corby
Northants
NN17 1G