Improving Community Safety through Partnerships John Curtis, Deputy Director for Community Safety, Government Office for the West Midlands

Partnership Working “In community safety, it has become ever more evident that a range of organisations and agencies working together deliver more effective and long lasting solutions than any one agency working alone.” Delivering Safer Communities: A guide to effective partnership working http://crimereduction.homeoffice.gov.uk/regions/regions11.htm

Partnership Working BUT………partnerships must be equipped to deliver As well as understanding the full breadth of crime and community safety issues in their area and demonstrating effective action to address them, partnerships are also expected to improve their skills and processes in order to do this. In the West Midlands, we are trying to help them do this 3

West Midlands Region 4 county areas 32 CDRPs 4 county areas largest CDRP in the country (Birmingham) several small district CDRPs number of unitaries currently well on track to meet agreed regional PSA1 crime reduction target

West Midlands Issues Our work with the West Midlands partnerships identified certain issues: Generally low levels of understanding around problem solving and analysis Need for better sharing of effective practice between partners Potential for peer support arrangements

Problem Solving GOWM funded a 6 week training course on problem solving over a 3 month period in early 2007 Led by Nick Tilley and Gloria Laycock of the Jill Dando Institute 64 delegates from across the West Midlands partnerships attended the course Course covered: theory and practice of problem-solving development of local strategic plans for the delivery of reductions in relation to a specific identified problem monitoring implementation and effect

Networking and Support within the West Midlands Bi-monthly networking meetings with partnerships facilitated and hosted by GOWM Developing arrangements to share effective practice between partnerships Supporting partnerships who submit entries to the Tilley awards Developing toolkits for partnerships around key elements of the Hallmarks Supporting partnerships with strategic assessments and partnership plans

Peer Mentoring Peer mentoring pilot underway within the region Follows feedback from partnerships at regional Hallmarks event in November Around 40 delegates attending training days in early March Peer support arrangements to be set up following training GOWM will evaluate the pilot and develop arrangements accordingly 8

Why were the Hallmarks introduced? Into the Future Will continue to support partnerships to develop and share experiences in order to perform effectively in line with Home Office priorities: LAAs Crime Strategy and new violent crime action plan new Drugs Strategy new PSAs and APACS performance management arrangements Home Office priorities in LAAs

Other Support National Community Safety Network www.community-safety.net Action Against Business Crime http://www.brc.org.uk/aabc Crime Reduction website http://www.crimereduction.homeoffice.gov.uk/ Government Offices http://www.gos.gov.uk/national