Full List of Statutory Requirements

Select the tabs below for more information:

Lead and Guide - The Right People Around the Table

District / Unitary Area

This section explains what is now required within the governance structure of each partnership. Although the legislation makes reference to a ‘strategy group’, this will not necessarily require establishing a new body. Various groups could meet these criteria, or be adapted to meet them. These may be called a ‘governing body’, ‘responsible authority group’, ‘executive group’ or ‘strategic partnership group’.

This group is ultimately responsible for preparing and implementing a strategic assessment and partnership plan.

Other staff may be commissioned to undertake some of the research or analysis, but the strategy group is responsible for signing it off and committing to the implementation of the plan. They are responsible for formulating and implementing a strategy to tackle crime and disorder.

Each of the five responsible authorities must be represented on the group.

This is important since each has a part of the picture and a unique role to play. Together, the partners can pool their combined knowledge to better identify the key issues within the community and understand clearly how to tackle them.

At least one of the representatives from each of the five responsible authorities must hold a senior position within their home organisation.

It is important that those within the partnership have an appropriate level of seniority within their home organisations to commit resources to joint projects and make decisions.

Where there is an elected member responsible for community safety on the council for the district/unitary area, they must also be a member of this group.

Elected members have a key role to play in partnerships and can ensure local services are responsive to the needs of their constituents. They are also able to play a key role in accessing funding for initiatives.

The group can decide the frequency of its meetings and can invite others to their meetings.

While the ultimate responsibility for the strategic assessment and partnership plan falls to the responsible authorities, other partners have important perspectives, information and resources to bring to the partnership table. The responsible authorities should consider inviting the cooperating bodies and invitees to participate (set out in Appendix G) to attend their meetings and contribute to the work of the partnership.

There must be arrangements for appointing a chair, agreeing the period for which the chair can serve and the grounds on which the chair can be changed within this period.

Leadership and authority should be earned rather than asserted and the responsibility given to the person with the skills and time to fulfil it most effectively. The chair does not have to be a member of one of the responsible authorities. The requirements are to ensure that leadership is accountable.

At least once a year, the group needs to consider whether the partnership has the requisite skills and knowledge to meet the statutory requirements.

As part of their lead role within the partnership, the strategy group has to ensure that the right people with the right skills are contributing to the work of the partnership. This does not need to involve a comprehensive skills audit, but they have to ensure that the partnership has an appropriate level of capability. Conducting an annual review enables the partnership as an organisation the opportunity to identify key strengths and weaknesses within the partnership.

England

Statutory Requirements – County area

In two-tier areas, the Local Area Agreement is negotiated at county level. For this reason, district priorities should be co-ordinated to feed into this process. There are also opportunities for co-ordinated community safety activities between partnerships. As community safety issues do not always respect district borders and may be organised better at county level. Each county council area (i.e. excluding unitary council areas) must have a county-level group to help coordinate the work of the partnerships within the area. This is referred to in the legislation as a ‘County Strategy Group’ but the following requirements may be met by an existing structure by another name, possibly a sub-group of the Local Strategic Partnership.

This group is responsible for preparing a community safety agreement for the county.

This document can identify priorities that can be fed into the Local Area Agreement for the area. In addition, this agreement should set out how the partnerships within the county will cooperate to deliver their priorities. This could include identifying where back office functions could be shared or where practitioners could work more closely on specific thematic or geographical areas.

This group must include chairs of each of the district strategy groups.

Since the community safety agreement will feed into the Local Area Agreement, through which community safety partnership funding is allocated, it is important that each partnership has a voice at county level.

The county council elected member responsible for community safety, where applicable, must be a member of this group.

As at district/unitary level, the county council elected member can ensure that the community’s considerations are taken into account in deciding county-wide priorities and can be a key player in securing funding for the community safety projects.

Representatives from each of the Police Forces, Police Authorities and Fire and Rescue Authorities in the county and a representative jointly appointed by the Primary Care Trusts in the county must sit on the group.

This requirement could be met by one of the partnership chairs, where they have an appropriate level of seniority within their home organisations to commit resources and make decisions.

There must be arrangements for appointing a chair, agreeing the period for which the chair can serve and the grounds on which the chair can be changed within this period.

The group can decide the frequency of its meetings and can invite others to their meetings.

While the ultimate responsibility for the community safety agreement falls to the responsible authorities, other partners have important perspectives, information, requirements and resources. The responsible authorities should consider inviting the co-operating bodies and invitees to participate (set out in Appendix G) to attend their meetings and contribute to the work of Community Safety Partnerships, particularly where engagement from these bodies is more appropriate at county than district level.

Lead and Guide - Governing Partnership Processes

The strategy group will prepare an information-sharing protocol.

It is important that strategic leaders appreciate the importance of information sharing and give the necessary approval to the processes that need to take place. This must cover the sharing of information under the new duty to share depersonalised datasets and any additional information, including personal data, which the partnership needs to share.

This protocol will be signed by all responsible authorities and will govern the sharing of information between the responsible authorities.

It can also be signed by other agencies and bodies and we strongly recommend that those other agencies covered by Section 115 of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 are also invited to sign and comply with the protocol.

Each responsible authority must nominate a designated liaison officer whose role will be to facilitate the sharing of information with other partners.

Having one person whose role includes sharing information with partners should allow other agencies to know who to approach first for information. These designated liaison officers should also be a source of expertise, allowing good quality decisions about information sharing to be made.

Lead and Guide - Visibility and Accountability

This section sets out what is now required of partnership as part of their work engaging with their communities. An important part of visible accountability is the ability of the community to meet with the key decision-makers in the partnerships. A statutory requirement to hold public meetings has been introduced, but we have purposely not prescribed their format. However, we intend these to be face the people meetings, included as part of the work in delivering the Respect agenda. A face the people session is where senior representatives of community safety partnerships meet the public to hear their issues and let them know about action that they have taken or will take to tackle them. The events will vary a great deal from place to place, from drop in sessions, to public meetings, to action-focused sessions tackling a particular issue. However, we recognise that partners hold many public meetings and we expect that they can use those meetings to serve a similar purpose.

To ensure that communities are involved with the process of supporting delivery, the regulations outline the following:

The strategy group must hold one or more public meetings during each year.

The partnership can decide the frequency of these meetings, but they must be held at least once a year.

That the public meetings be attended by individuals who hold a senior position within each responsible authority.

The partnership must hold public meetings, attended by senior representatives from each of the responsible authorities. It is an important aspect of visible accountability that the community can raise their concerns with senior representatives.

The strategy group shall take steps as it considers appropriate to bring to the attention of persons who live or work in the area, or who might otherwise be interested, information about what was discussed at such meetings and where the meetings are to be held.

It is important that the communities are able to access the information on what partners are doing to address crime and anti-social behaviour. If local communities are to be informed about, and actively engage in addressing the problems in their areas, they must be better informed about the delivery of priorities. Providing this form of information to the community is also important as it supports the process of ensuring that individuals can be active participants in supporting the partnership achieve local priorities.

England

Engaging Communities

The interaction between partnerships and their communities is an important theme running through all the new statutory requirements and the Hallmarks. This is a significant change from the previous legislation, where partnerships were required only to consult their communities as part of their work to produce a strategy. Now, partnerships are required specifically to consult and seek the participation of their communities in their work. This matches the new role under the new Best Value duty to ‘consult and involve’, set out in the Local Government White Paper, ‘Strong and Prosperous Communities’.

These new statutory requirements are included in the relevant sections of the guidance, but they are set out here to emphasise the role that the leadership of the partnership have in ensuring that there is a sense of genuine empowerment in their communities in relation to crime and disorder. There is room for local ﬂexibility in how this is done, so that we allow for local innovation or existing arrangements.

New Statutory Requirements

The partnership will consult its communities about crime and disorder issues in their area and also about what priorities the partnership should tackle (see Assess: Getting the Information You Need).
The partnership also has to consult communities who may be affected by the priorities that will be included in the strategy and plan (see Assess: Getting the Information You Need).
In doing so, the partnership will take into account any existing consultation undertaken by partnership members (see Assess: Getting the Information You Need).
The partnership will hold one or more public meetings throughout the year (explained in more detail in this section).
The partnership will also have to consider the way in which its communities can help in supporting the delivery of the priorities in the partnership plan (see Deliver: Implementation).
The strategic assessment will contain the priorities that the community have identified that the partnership should tackle (see Assess: Determine Priorities).
The partnership have to publish a summary of the partnership plan in a way that reaches all the community, as far as is reasonable (see Prepare the Plan: Publish the Summary).

Assess - Getting the Information You Need

Certain sets of depersonalised information must be shared on a quarterly basis.

Information sharing within partnerships has often been sporadic even though it is permitted under section 115 of the Crime and Disorder Act. The introduction of a new duty to share certain sets of depersonalised data is designed to increase the effectiveness of partnerships by ensuring that they have the necessary multi-agency data for identifying priorities, mapping trends and patterns in crime and disorder, and managing their performance.

The Police and Justice Act 2006 introduces a new duty on certain agencies to disclose certain sets of depersonalised information at least quarterly in electronic form to the other section 115 relevant authorities†. The relevant datasets are included in a separate statutory instrument and are set out in Appendix J. The purpose of sharing this information is to enable the profiling of crime and disorder trends and patterns within the area. For this reason, in most cases, it is the record level data that is specified rather than aggregate data or statistics.

This duty only applies when the authority holds the information so it does not require the collection of any additional information. In each case, the duty applies to information relating to the partnership area as defined by the district or unitary authority area. Analysis can then take place across a number of different datasets on at least a quarterly basis.

In order to satisfy the new requirements, information covered by the new duty relating to each quarter (for example July – September) must be shared by the end of the following quarter (for example, by the end of December). This means that the relevant authorities could share all the information once per quarter; on a monthly basis; or more regularly. In England, the first quarter for which information must be shared is July 2007 – September 2007. This information must be disclosed by the end of December 2007. In Wales, the duty will only apply once the duty to share information has been commenced alongside the other statutory requirements for Wales.

The Police and Justice Act 2006 specifically excludes any personal data from this duty to disclose. This means information which can identify a living individual, either by itself or in combination with other information held, or likely to be held, by the relevant authority. Where an incident is recorded as a domestic incident, for example, sharing precise location information may, in some circumstances, be sufficient to identify a living individual. In such instances, the duty does not apply. Subject to complying with other legal obligations such as the common law of confidentiality for information from ambulance callouts, the authority may still choose to disclose this information to the other Section 115 relevant authorities, who should treat it as personal data (see Lead and Guide: Governing Partnership Processess). Alternatively, the authority may choose to share less specific location information so that the dataset contains exclusively depersonalised information. In the case of ambulance callouts, this should be the outward part of the postcode only.‡

† The Section 115 responsible authorities are: police, police authority, local authority (including district, county, London borough, parish council, community council, county borough council), registered social landlord, local probation board, local health board (in Wales), primary care trust, strategic health authority, fire and rescue authority.

‡ The outward part of the postcode is the part before the space e.g. BN14 in BN14 8DF or M1 in M1 1AA. For more information please see: http://www. govtalk.gov.uk/gdsc/html/frames/Postcode.htm.

The following information needs to be considered when preparing a strategic assessment:

Information from the responsible authorities.
Information from wider partners.
Information from the overview and scrutiny committee considering crime and disorder matters, where it exists††.
Information provided by the community.
The previous partnership plan.

For the strategic assessment to be a document that best reﬂects the most up-to-date needs of the community, it is important that information from a wide range of partners is considered. This should include, but not be limited to, the information shared on a quarterly basis under the new duty to share (see above). It is not sufficient for it to be based purely on information from one source, for example police crime records.

†† Sections 19-20 of the Police and Justice Act 2006 introduced a requirement for overview and scrutiny committees to consider crime and disorder but the provisions have yet to come into force.

In undertaking any community consultation, the partnership must have regard to the results of any other consultation activities undertaken by the responsible authorities.

All the responsible authorities have requirements to consult their communities. For example, local authorities and fire and rescue authorities have a duty to consult as best value authorities. Some of these exercises will result in information about the community safety issues that the community are most concerned about. This information should be considered alongside information gathered by other agencies and bodies before any further engagement activity is undertaken.

In preparing the strategic assessment, the partnership will seek:

Views from the community on the levels and patterns of crime, disorder and substance misuse.
Views from the community on matters that need to be prioritised by the partnership.

In seeking these views, the partnership will ensure they are sought from:

People who appear to represent the interests of as many different groups or persons within the area as is reasonable.
Those likely to be most affected by the priorities.

The purpose of community consultation in this instance is to gather additional information for the strategic assessment. In doing so, partnership should make sure it consults any parts of the community whose views are under represented and also target those most likely to be affected by their priorities. This could include, for example, young people or victim support groups.

Assess - Determine Priorities

Each year, the partnership shall prepare a strategic assessment to assist in producing or revising the partnership plan.

The legislation requires the strategy group to do this on behalf of the responsible authorities. Your governing body should commission the assessment and commit to taking forward the priorities identified through the process. The purpose of the strategic assessment is to help you identify which crime and disorder priorities to focus on in the coming year.

The strategic assessment must include:

Analysis of the level and patterns of crime, disorder and substance misuse.
Changes in the levels and patterns of crime, disorder and substance misuse since the last strategic assessment.
Analysis of why these changes have occurred.
Assessment of the extent to which last year’s plan was implemented.

The strategic assessment should help you to understand what is happening in your area and why. It is an internal document for the partnership, to inform the partnership plan, and does not need to be published.

In preparing the strategic assessment, the partnership will reﬂect views from the community on matters that need to be prioritised.

In addition to collecting the views of the community, they need to be fed into the strategic assessment to inform the identification of priorities.

Assess - Partnership-Working in Two-Tier Areas

England

The strategic assessment must outline the priorities to escalate to the county level.

In order for partnership priorities to be reﬂected in the Local Area Agreement and in any plans to tackle community safety at the county level, the partnership need to identify those priorities that should be escalated.

The county strategy group will prepare a community safety agreement based on the individual strategic assessments of partnerships within the county.

The county group, the purpose and structure of which is discussed in Lead and Guide: The Right People Around the Table, hold the responsibility for coordinating the strategic assessments into a county-wide document.

The community safety agreement will identify:

Ways of co-ordinating across the county to address priorities.
How the responsible authorities might otherwise contribute to reducing crime, disorder and substance misuse through closer joint working across the county.

Some crimes can be tackled more effectively through joint working between partnerships. For example, if each partnership has a domestic violence action group, all of which are liaising with the same Primary Care Trust or health service provider, it can be beneficial to amalgamate these groups into one which works across the county. This can free up both human and financial resources to support the delivery of this work in other ways or the delivery of other projects.

Plan for Action - Prepare the Plan

This plan has to be a three year plan.

The partnership has to produce a plan that covers the next three years. This allows them to develop plans to tackle their short, medium and long-term priorities and to align with other planning cycles, notably in England, the Local Area Agreement planning process.

The plan must be revised annually.

The priorities of the partnership will not always remain the same. In revising the plan annually, partnerships can reﬂect any new priorities emerging from their strategic assessments.

The plan has to include a strategy for tackling crime and disorder in the area.

Partnerships are required by existing legislation in the Crime and Disorder Act to produce this strategy. The plan should contain a strategy for tackling the identified crime and disorder in their area.

The plan will contain the priorities identified through the strategic assessment.

The plan takes forward the priorities that have been identified in the strategic assessment, including the community priorities.

The plan has to contain information about the role of each partner in supporting delivery of the priorities and how this will be resourced.

Working together to deliver priorities is the activity that binds the partnership together. However, the plan will contain details of the way in which partners will contribute to agreed priorities and how these will be resourced.

The plan should contain information about the way in which performance against priorities will be measured.

Establishing a robust performance management framework is a vital aspect of any effective partnership and is essential for successful and sustainable delivery. The plan must contain details of how the partnership will address the performance management of their work.

The plan will also contain information about the way in which the partnership will engage with their communities.

Partnerships are required to carry out community consultation as part of their strategic assessment. This demonstrates to the community that their views are taken seriously.

Plan for Action - Publish the Summary

The partnership have to publish a summary of the partnership plan in a format of their choice, but in a way that makes it available to diverse groups in their communities.

We know that some agencies within a partnership are already under existing duties to publish summaries of their own plans, but an effective partnership will still want to be open about their own plans. However, the partnership should publish a summary in way that is accessible to diverse communities as part of their need to be visible and accountable, but we are not specifying the format of the summary plan.

Deliver - Implementation

The strategy group is responsible for the implementation of the partnership plan.

The core responsibilities of the partnership include the implementation or delivery of the partnership plan as well as its formulation.

The partnership plan must set out the extent to which people living or working in the area might assist the partnership in reducing crime, disorder and substance misuse.

As part of a partnership’s community engagement activities, there are often ways in which the community can be involved in delivering community safety. Making the most of these can lead to more empowered communities and sustain and embed delivery.

Deliver - Solving Problems

There are no statutory requirements concerned with the way in which partnerships tackle their crime and disorder issues. This recognises that partnerships will benefit from the ﬂexibility to address problems in a way that makes sense locally.

Deliver - Evaluating Impact

The strategic assessment must include an assessment of the extent to which last year’s plan was implemented.

Evaluation of the implementation of partnership plans needs to be considered throughout the year, but will be required when preparing the strategic assessment. Evidence of the success of the implementation of the previous year’s partnership plan will need to be feed into the strategic assessment. Any evaluation of particular projects or initiatives will form an important and robust part of this evidence. The partnership will need to consider what further evaluation work could to be carried out during the year in order to inform future strategic assessments.

The strategy group must have in place arrangements for assessing the value for money of partnership activities.

Many of the agencies within the partnership already have a duty to consider value for money (economy, efficiency and effectiveness) within their own organisations. This regulation extends this duty to projects and initiatives carried out in partnership. These arrangements should look at the cost of the intervention as well as the effectiveness in achieving the goals in order to assess the value for money the work presented– see Plan for Action – Prepare the Plan for further details)