Intelligence led Business Processes and Effective and Responsive Delivery Structures:
Safer Southwark Partnership – The Partnership Operations Group (POG)
The Safer Southwark Partnership (SSP) is the Community Safety arm of the South Alliance, the Local Strategic Partnership in the area. In 2005, Safer Southwark Partnership set up the Partnership Operations Group (POG), as part of their wider governance structure, to better co-ordinate a partnership approach to tackling local crime, disorder, substance misuse and anti-social behaviour issues. This group co- ordinates tasking across over 18 different agencies and reports to the SSP Performance Group, which closely monitors performance. In the years following the establishment of the POG, crime has fallen in the area and performance has improved significantly across a range of measures. In particular the borough has seen a dramatic reduction in violent crime, such as common assault, actual bodily harm, grievous bodily harm and domestic violence. All of which have formed the focus of the POG.
What they did
2005 saw the introduction of a new three year strategy with a challenging set of performance targets. Like most of crime and disorder reduction partnerships, Southwark has developed a range of services to respond to the priorities outlined in their strategy. However, the partnership recognised that to meet the new targets there had to be appropriate mechanisms in place to ensure strategic targets can be delivered by those on front line. This was particularly important in areas such as violent crime, domestic violence and alcohol related disorder where the recorded levels of crime were showing signs of increasing.
In order to support this process, a review was conducted which focused on the partnerships ability to ensure appropriate strategic direction, performance management frameworks and the targeting of operational resources. The POG was developed as a result of this review to provide a framework to task and hold to account a range of partnership resources based on data and intelligence profiling. The POG meets fortnightly to agree operational tasking for Southwark. This tasking has a strong forward-planning remit and is supported by analysis and profiling of a range of partnership data, prepared by members of a joint funded partnership analytical team.
What it involved
The first POG took place in May 2005. The level of intelligence at the initial meetings tended to be broad overviews and it took approximately three months to establish a thorough intelligence profile for the meetings.
The POG is an intelligence-led business process, driven by analysis conducted within the community desk (a jointly resourced team of analysts and researchers). This accounts for approximately three days work from this team during a 14 day cycle. The analysis conducted concentrates on key aspect of the ten indicators for PSA 1 as well as domestic violence which is recognised by the partnership as a key causal factor in influencing involvement in other types of crime and anti-social behaviour. The composition of POG is multi-agency in focus and includes individuals from across the responsible authorities, co-operating bodies and invitees to participate in order to ensure that a holistic approach is taken to tackling crime.
What impact it had
The introduction of the new structure has been has facilitated the following:
- A fall in comparator crime by 7% in Southwark as measured by the British Crime Survey.
- During 2006-07 Southwark experienced month-on-month reductions in wounding (ABH and GBH) offences, compared to the previous year and a chieving a 22% reduction in wounding.
- Within their CDRP most similar grouping, SSP have significantly improved their position from sixth out of 15 and above the family average in 2006-7 compared to 2005-6.
- Clearer identification of trends and patterns within Southwark which can be acted upon succinctly.
- 6% reduction in DV in June, compared to the previous June. This was the 3rd lowest month for DV in the borough for the past 15 months.
- In addition, the focus on repeat offenders has meant that the sanctioned detection rate for domestic violence for 2006-7 was 38%.
Lessons learned
Key lessons learned from this process include:
- Strong leadership is essential. Through strong leadership they engaged and inspired partners to strive for constant improvement at the POG and created enthusiasm to tackle long standing issues.
- Those who attend the POG need to be at a senior enough level to be able to commit resources and make operational decisions that can be delivered within their own agency / division. Financial resources are not enough and the individual must also have a good level of operational knowledge to appropriate decision making.
- Equal buy-in and commitment from all partners is critical – in order to tackle crime and anti social behaviour in a sustainable fashion, the co-operation and input of all partners is necessary.
- Other partnerships wanting to implement a POG in their own area will need to have the analytical capacity and capability in place to deliver the intelligence product necessary to the group’s functioning and success.
- Strong executive member support it important as it ensures that the key issues that emerge are incorporated into the broader council priorities.
