What Tories termed a radical new model for tackling crime across the country was launched at the Conservative Party Conference. The model, ‘Safer Deals’, outlines how newly-elected Police and Crime Commissioners should work with both central and local government to tackle crime, which will lead to safer streets, greater business investment and more jobs.
Westminster City Council’s Cabinet Member for Children, Young People and Community Protection, Cllr Nickie Aiken, presented the proposal as part of a wider ‘Future of Policing’ discussion at the conference on October 7.
Under the plans, city councils would be incentivised to work with the country’s new Police and Crime Commissioners to tackle crime on a more local level – which would boost economic growth, it is suggested. The proposal came in the run-up to the first elections of 41 Police and Crime Commissioners across England and Wales on Thursday, November 15. The elections brought in by the Coalition to replace police authorities will see an individual PCC who will be accountable for how crime is tackled in their police force area. According to the Government, this will bring communities closer to the police, restoring trust and making and influencing key decisions on matters like CCTV, street lighting and tackling gangs and drug dealing.
London’s Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime, Stephen Greenhalgh, was part of a panel as Cllr Aiken presented the new policing concept. The proposals include forging a new relationship between Police and Crime Commissioners, local authorities and central government, which builds on the principles of City Deals in which a set of powers are devolved to England’s largest cities to, the Conservatives say, drive growth and create jobs. Described as a ‘Safer Deal’, the new arrangement would aim to give local areas the powers and tools needed to tackle crime in what the Tories term a locally responsive way. The proposal acknowledges that fear of crime regularly tops the list of residents’ concerns, and that businesses prefer to invest in safer neighbourhoods, making crime prevention a precondition for local growth. In practice, say the Tories, Safer Deals could mean:
A payment by results model to prevent gang violence in London
The development of a unique offer to reduce reoffending in Manchester
A fast track justice scheme to tackle anti-social behaviour in Bristol.
A report on Safer Deals, released during the Conservative party conference, argued local authorities can work with their local Police and Crime Commissioner to deliver safer city communities, given the right freedoms, flexibilities and resources. Local areas would come together with their police and crime commissioner to design an ‘ask’ to central government, which would be the report claimed a tailored set of freedoms and flexibilities reliant on delivery outcomes to reduce crime in a particular area.
The new Safer Deals would be informed by a key set of principles:
Providing incentives for success – local leaders would need to redouble their efforts to tackle crime and reduce offending in their area, and if they do, they will be rewarded through payment by results
Working across administrative boundaries, sectors and silos – the criminal justice process needs to work for victims and communities, tackling crime and the causes of crime, from beginning to end
Devolving real powers and resources – local areas need the right tools and freedoms to tackle crime.
Commenting on the new plans, Cllr Nickie Aiken said: “Our Safer Deals proposal sets out radical new plans for how city councils can work with their newly-elected Police and Crime Commissioners to fight crime at a far more local level and be more responsive to the crime challenges of their individual neighbourhoods. Safer streets translate into greater economic growth, so ambitious local authorities need to work with Police and Crime Commissioners to find innovative ways of fighting crime and creating a coherent crime prevention plan.
“Truly localised policing, with more responsibilities held at a local level, would also be more cost effective and represent better value for money in major cities like Westminster.”
London’s Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime, Stephen Greenhalgh, added: “The Safer Deal concept accords with my vision for how the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime should be commissioning services to help improve public safety in London. If enacted, Safer Deals would encourage a proliferation of local responses that are co-commissioned by PCCs and local authorities, and which would focus on only paying for what works, and on getting results.”
Meanwhile on November 6, David Hanson MP, Labour’s Shadow Policing Minister, responding to Theresa May’s comments on the PCC elections on BBC Radio 4, said: “With these elections just over a week away, the Home Secretary needs to take responsibility for the shambolic way in which they have been organised.
“This Government has failed to sell their flagship policy and by holding these new elections in the dark and cold month of November, with little publicity, it is hardly a surprise that the Home Secretary did not want to comment on turnout.
“The Electoral Reform Society has warned that we are facing the prospect of the “the lowest turnout of any nationwide election in British history” – and if this is the case then it is the Home Secretary who is to blame.
“Labour opposed these new positions and we have serious concerns about the way in which the elections have been handled – at the cost of £100m, the money being spent to bring them in would be better spent on 3,000 new police constables. Despite this we are determined to make the best of a bad job and will not stand aside and let Tory and Liberal Democrat candidates become cheerleaders for the Government’s 20 per cent cuts.
“By cutting 15,000 police officers, making it harder to use CCTV or DNA evidence, as well as scrapping ASBOs, this Government is making it harder to cut crime. I hope people will use the Police and Crime Commissioner elections to send a tough message to the Government that they’ve got it wrong on policing and crime.”
