The crucial role of the new local performance framework
This document is for partners, stakeholders and local service providers involved in delivering crime reduction and community safety. It explains how it is envisaged two new performance frameworks for the police and local government will fit together and highlights some of the implications for those delivering at a local level. It should be read alongside An Introduction to the Local Performance Framework – Delivering Better Outcomes for Local People, which provides a clear overview of the new local performance framework and explains its consituent parts.
Title: Crime reduction and community safety: The crucial role of the new local performance framework
Author: Department for Communities and Local Government
Number of pages: 13
Date published: April 2008
Availability: Download full report PDF Kb
The new local performance framework for local authorities and their partners will go live from April 2008. The Assessments of Policing and Community Safety (APACS) is the new assessment framework for the police working alone and in partnership and this will also go live in April 2008.
For those outcomes delivered by the police and local government together, the indicators used by APACS and the indicators in the local performance framework will be the same. This will mean that data collection requirements on local partners will be significantly reduced and that discussions between them on performance issues will be simplified by a common language for the measurement and assessment process. These shared indicators will also help to drive joint working between local partners.
Similarly, discussions about performance between local agencies and partnerships and central government will be based on shared information. Indicator data will be collected only once and a common approach to analysis and assessment will be used. This joined-up approach will avoid central government placing conflicting demands on police and local authorities.
Local delivery of community safety priorities
As well as simplifying performance monitoring, the alignment of the local performance framework and APACS will enable local partners to agree shared improvement targets through new local area agreements (LAAs). LAAs will be the only mechanism by which improvement targets for outcomes delivered by local government on their own or in partnership can be agreed between the local area and central government.
Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships (CDRPs) will have a crucial role in the identification, agreement and delivery of community safety priorities for LAAs. The Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007 places a duty on many CDRP partners (including the responsible authorities - local authorities, police authorities, chief officers of police, primary care trusts and fire and rescue authorities) to co-operate to agree LAA targets and then a duty to have regard to the targets they have agreed. More information about these new legal duties is available in the draft statutory guidance which has been issued for consultation Creating Strong, Safe and Prosperous Communities Statutory Guidance: Draft for Consultation. Please note that this may change as a result of consultation.
Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnership partners can support the identification of the priorities within LAAs through the strategic assessment of crime and disorder issues that they carry out within their area. District level CDRPs will want to consider how their priorities can be relected at the county-level LAA, possibly using the County Strategy Group introduced in the new statutory requirements for CDRPs, as part of the CDRP reform programme. The new statutory requirements for CDRPs, set out as minimum standards which form part of the Hallmarks of Effective Practice, will support this – further details can be found in Delivering Safer Communities: a guide to effective partnership working.
In order to ensure consistency between the new government public service agreements (PSAs), future APACS assessments and LAAs, it is important that:
- Crime and disorder reduction partnerships take into account the implications of the new PSAs, as well as the results of their strategic assessment, when setting their priorities.
- As part of that, CDRPs take into account supporting information that will be provided by the Home Office (through iQuanta) which sets out how APACS might describe performance of the CDRP area in relation to both PSA indicators and other APACS indicators that will feature in the new local performance framework, as far as it is possible to determine before APACS is inalised.
- This information is available so that it can be factored in to the consideration of appropriate LAA targets.
Government Offices will likewise have access to the same information through iQuanta, and will consider this when representing the government’s position in LAA negotiations. This analysis will be provided to inform the debate and help support the alignment of APACS and the new local performance framework in the long term, not as an attempt to mandate the content of LAAs or to inluence the inal shape of the APACS framework
Police authorities may wish to consider how they work with local strategic partnerships (LSPs) and CDRPs in order to achieve alignment between LAA targets and policing plans. More information about community safety priorities for CDRPs, LSPs and other partnerships can be found in the National Community Safety Plan 2008-2011 and in the Government’s crime strategy Cutting Crime – A New Partnership 2008-2011.
Consulting and engaging communities in community safety issues
The involvement of the community is core to the work of CDRPs and LSPs as they tackle community safety issues in their areas. For community safety issues, there is a new statutory requirement on responsible authorities in CDRPs to consult, engage and report regularly to their communities. Furthermore, responsible authorities are required to have regard to any other consultation that they undertake on crime and disorder. Details of the requirements affecting CDRP responsible authorities can be found in the Delivering Safer Communities guidance , referred to earlier .
This is supported by the new duty to inform, consult and involve for best value authorities , set out in the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act. More information about what this duty means in practice is contained in the draft statutory guidance Creating Strong, Safe and Prosperous Communities Statutory Guidance: Draft for Consultation mentioned earlier .
Partners affected by both duties are expected to ensure that the engagement they undertake can meet both requirements.
Performance management of community safety
The Audit Commission, Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary together with 5 other inspectorates are jointly developing an outcome-focused, proportionate and risk-based Comprehensive Area Assessment (CAA) covering outcomes that are the responsibility of councils working alone or in partnership with others; this will be introduced from April 2009. In making assessments under APACS and CAA, the inspectorates and the Home Office will be able to draw on the same data and will work together to assess performance and prospects for delivery on crime reduction and community safety for an area.
Comprehensive Area Assessment will be built up through ongoing assessment of available data for an area which will be brought together in a set of annually reported judgements. Information from the CAA and the GO’s annual review of the LAA will each help to determine any improvement action needed.
In addition to the formal process for review, there will be a continuous relationship between the Government Office, the local authority/authorities in an area and other local partners. This means signiicant risks and issues need not wait to be addressed until the CAA judgements are published or the annual review of the LAA. Where appropriate, this could mean that the Government Office and the partnership agree to review progress on speciic LAA improvement targets more frequently.
Where there are performance concerns suggested by ongoing monitoring of performance indicators, progress against LAA targets, or from assessment or inspection activity, action should be taken at an early stage to address it. The Home Office is committed to aligning its support programme for CDRPs with the co-ordinated framework for support and intervention set out in the Local Government White Paper. This will ensure that the level of intervention will correspond broadly to the seriousness of failure and the capacity and willingness of the partnership to address it. It will also ensure that intervention action is as effective as possible by avoiding uncoordinated approaches by government departments that may place unnecessary burdens on local partners.
APACS indicators also included in the local performance framework:
NI 15 Serious violent crime rate
NI 16 Serious acquisitive crime rate
NI 17 Perceptions of anti-social behaviour
NI 18 Adult re-offending rate
NI 19 Youth re-offending rate
NI 20 Assault with injury rate
NI 21 Dealing with local concerns
NI 24 Satisfaction with service delivery (ASB)
NI 25 Comparative satisfaction with service delivery (ASB)
NI 26 Support to victims of serious sexual offences
NI 27 Understanding local concerns
NI 28 Serious knife crime rate
NI 29 Gun crime rate
NI 30 Priority offender re-offending rate
NI 32 Domestic violence victimisation
NI33 Arson and deliberate fires
NI 34 Domestic violence - homicide
NI 35 Building resilience to violent extremism
NI 36 Protection against terrorist attack
NI 38 Drug-related offending rate
NI 41 Perception of drunk / rowdy behaviour
NI 42 Perception of drug use / drug dealing
NI 47 People killed or seriously injured in road traffic accidents
NI 48 Children killed or seriously injured in road traffic accidents
NI 111 First time entrants to the youth justice system
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Last update: Thursday, April 10, 2008