New Statutory Requirements

The five responsible authorities – the police, police authorities, local authorities, fire and rescue authorities, Local Health Boards in Wales and Primary Care Trusts in England – set out in the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 and subsequent legislation are under a duty to formulate and implement a strategy to tackle crime and disorder in their areas. The new statutory requirements included in this guidance describe the processes these responsible authorities must have in place as they develop these strategies. We expect other partners (see Appendix G for details) to follow the spirit of the requirements and to work with, and support, the responsible authorities as they deliver the statutory requirements and the Hallmarks of Effective Practice.

We recognise that legislation on its own will not achieve the further improvements in partnership effectiveness. The legislation set out our expectations of the processes that all partnerships need to have in place to ensure that all areas achieve a common level of performance.

The Crime and Disorder Act 1998 represented a solid start upon which to build partnerships to tackle crime and disorder. However, the landscape in which these partnerships deliver has changed considerably over time and, to identify what changes might be made to the legislation, a formal review of the provisions of the Crime and Disorder Act was carried out during 2004-5. This involved over 450 stakeholders and found that the existing legislation did not fully reﬂect the changing expectations of effective delivery.†

One of the key findings of the review was that three year audits and strategies were resource intensive and were often seen as a distraction from delivery. Many partnerships were already reviewing and revising their three year strategies on an annual basis to reﬂect shifting patterns in their local areas. For this reason, the review team recommended more regular strategic assessments and the adoption of intelligence-led business processes. To support this, it recommended strengthening section 115 of the Crime and Disorder Act (data sharing) by placing a duty on partners to share certain depersonalised datasets. In order to become more visible and accountable to their communities, it also concluded that partnerships should engage with their communities on a regular and ongoing basis, reporting to them instead of to the Secretary of State. In order to bring these changes about, a key recommendation of the review was that there should be a set of national standards for partnerships.

At regional events during Summer 2006, we consulted stakeholders on the findings of the review and the content of national standards. To reﬂect the changing role of partners and partnerships, legislative changes were brought in by the Police and Justice Act 2006 and subsequent regulations, which came into force on 1 August 2007 for England and in November 2007 in Wales. This included the repeal of two main partnership duties:

The duty to produce three yearly audits and strategies – the 2005-08 audit and strategy will be the last in the current format.
The duty to report annually to the Secretary of State on a partnership’s work and progress.

By introducing the new statutory requirements, the intention is to:

Improve partnership performance across England and Wales.
Provide clarity around what the responsible authorities are expected to do under partnership arrangements.
Reﬂect the changes in the delivery and performance management landscape since the introduction of partnerships in 1998.

What partnerships will need to do in accordance with the new legislation under each of these elements is set out in the following chapters of this guidance. We believe that every partnership is capable of delivering what is required through these statutory requirements and they represent minimum standards of partnership performance. However, the Hallmarks build on them to describe what partnerships can achieve if they aim for increased effectiveness. We will highlight the statutory requirements in each chapter, so that partners can see easily how they relate to the Hallmarks and understand how they can build upon them to achieve the Hallmarks.

Where you see this symbol, this refers to the statutory requirements so that partnerships can identify clearly what they are required to do under new legislation.

These new statutory requirements will apply in England from 1 August 2007 and in Wales from November 2007. This guidance covers both England and Wales. Where there are differences in delivery, issues specific to either England or Wales are highlighted

† For details of the review of the Crime and Disorder Act, please see Appendix F.