Building Safer Communities Programme: Learning Network Event 7

One Year on from the Creation of Single Police and Fire Services - 2 April 2014

The Scottish Building Safer Communities Programme is one of the Scottish Government’s four Justice Change Programmes. It was established in 2009 to reduce crime and improve community safety and resilience in Scotland.

PLENARY SESSION

The Building Safer Communities Programme

Paul Johnston, Director of Safer Communities at the Scottish Government thanked those in national organisations who have worked so hard to implement a “seamless transition from the legacy forces to the new national services”, while ensuring that communities feel safe. He also thanked the wide range of other organisations who have worked to secure successful delivery, including local government, third sector and Scottish Government colleagues.

Paul stated that “reform is a journey which we are continuing on” – but stressed that we are clearly making progress. He set out the positive findings of the Scottish Crime and Justice Survey, which highlighted that:

  • Fewer Scots are now likely to become victims of crime (at 16.9% a 3.5% fall since 2008/09) – and levels are lower than in England and Wales.
  • Clear up rates for all crimes are now at their highest for 35 years – at 51%.
  • People across Scotland are saying they feel safer in their communities and are less fearful of crime.
  • The public’s perception about the ability of local police forces to investigate incidents has improved.

Paul moved on to talk about the work of the Building Safer Communities Programme. The Board, supported by analysts, has set two aims:

  • To reduce the cumulative number of victims of crime by 250,000 by 2017/18.
  • To reduce harm from unintentional injury.

Paul highlighted that we are currently on track to reduce victims of crime by about 125,000, so to meet this target we need additional work.

Paul also highlighted the focus on taking an assets based approach to working in local communities. He emphasised the rich array of work around engaging communities, building on their existing strengths and using an assets based approach, which is seeing “powerful results”.

The Programme Board plans to identify a small number of places where good work is already going on involving Police Scotland, Scottish Fire and Rescue and community planning partners – and agree how best to effectively join up the learning across these areas and with others.

Local Policing, One Year On

Chief Superintendent Grant Manders of Police Scotland provided an update on local policing, one year on. Grant thanked the communities and partner organisations who had assisted greatly with reform. He emphasised that people in Scotland were currently getting “at least” the same service as they received before reform.

Grant highlighted that Police Scotland was the second biggest policing organisation in the UK, and that reform has been a difficult journey where some things have gone wrong – but most has gone well. Positive developments include:

  • A focus on the local level – with strong scrutiny arrangements and 353 multi member ward plans.
  • Routine engagement with service users to find out what they think of Police Scotland – with 78% feeling confident in Police Scotland.
  • Police Scotland has met its savings target for the first year.
  • The new ‘101’ service has been introduced, dealing with 82% of non-emergency calls.
  • Social media has been used to engage with people locally – with half a million people now engaging with Police Scotland in this way.
  • Specialist units have been available to support local policing – with numerous examples of how this has worked in the past year.
  • A strong performance regime has been set up, with targets for Divisions based on previous performance.
  • The Police Scotland estate has been reviewed.

Grant stressed that Police Scotland had been slightly introspective in the first year, but had begun working hard to build local, regional and national partnerships over the past few months – work which would continue in the future.

“Policing doesn’t operate in a bubble, it operates in partnership.”

Local Fire and Rescue, One Year On

ACO Lewis Ramsay of Scottish Fire and Rescue Service provided an update on local fire and rescue, one year on. Lewis emphasised that it would previously have been impossible to gather the specialist resources and take the immediate decisions required to deal with major incidents – which is a real benefit to all communities. Other developments include:

  • Feedback has suggested that communities have not noticed a significant difference to the service they received over the past year – meaning service levels had been maintained.
  • Practices and policies have been reviewed – undergoing meaningful and robust challenge, and allowing for consistency in some areas (such as fire safety enforcement, business engagement, and unwanted fire alarm signals) where consistency was simply not possible before.
  • Scottish Fire and Rescue Service is working to nurture and develop Local Senior Officers, who have a key role at a local level.
  • Scottish Fire and Rescue Service is working to improve the way it consults, where there are opportunities for communities to influence decisions.

Lewis emphasised that the focus of the Building Safer Communities Programme on reducing harm from unintended injury was positive, and that there was real potential to get deaths from fire down to zero, if we all work together. Scottish Fire and Rescue Service is taking a lead role in seeking out notable practice – for example the Aberdeenshire Hub approach; co-location in West Lothian Civic Centre; and joint work between SFRS, Police Scotland and Glasgow Housing Association in reducing anti-social behaviour.

Question and Answer Session

The audience was invited to ask questions of the three presenters.

Q Tim Kendrick, Fife Council:There was a sense from Grant Manders’ presentation that we are still justifying having a national police force. It is also worth thinking more closely about how we measure improvement in scrutiny and community engagement – it is not just about having more elected members involved, but about the quality of involvement.

Grant agreed, and emphasised that he was trying to raise topical issues without being defensive. He agreed that we need to think about scrutiny and accountability to communities – but emphasised that the bottom line for him is what communities think about the service. Grant was very pleased with the high confidence levels in Police Scotland, and felt that this was a major indication of success.

Lewis agreed that we should remember we are on a journey, and are only one year in. There needs to be a new paradigm of partnership working with communities, and this will take time.

Q Carron McDiarmid, Highland Council:Elected members have built up trust and relationships with officials from Police Scotland locally – are there arrangements for succession planning for these very important posts?

Grant suggested that succession planning was becoming more important now that there are people in place who understand the local context. He recognised that you can’t underestimate personal relationships and the difference they make, and agreed that Police Scotland was now at the stage where it needs to start thinking about succession planning.

Q Archie Drummond, Clackmannanshire Council (Councillor): It is true that locally, more councillors are getting more information than previously, and are seeking better information for the future. However, it is important not to dismiss real experiences – such as negative experiences of the ‘101’ service.

Grant felt that individual cases could sometimes be extrapolated to cover all experiences, and it was important to remember that by and large people had a good experience of using the 101 service. He did not mean to be disparaging, and agreed it was important to look at where systems or processes went wrong in each case.

PART TWO: WORKSHOPS

Total Place in Edinburgh East

This workshop focused on a new way of delivering services and a new way of engaging communities – with a focus on working together and prevention. The approach aims to demonstrate that things can be done in a different way. There is no extra budget, and everyone is doing it as part of their day jobs.

Key lessons learned include:

  • Improvisation is important – there is no clear road map for this type of work.
  • Drilling down beyond headline expenditure is necessary to learn about how money is really spent. Corporate analysts did high level work to establish headline expenditure, but it has been difficult (but important) to drill down below this.
  • Community capacity building is necessary to develop relationships to a new level.
  • Total neighbourhood is hard work – but co-location; building on existing partnerships; selling it to people from the outset and senior champions can all help drive it.
  • East Edinburgh includes 65,000 people, which is too big. 15,000 – 20,000 might be more appropriate.
  • This area already had a well engaged community, and opening up space in public buildings for ‘community meeting space’ led to more effective conversations.
  • The cultural shift to an asset-based approach needs visible leadership and a shift in empowerment to local staff.

Mentors in Violence Prevention

This programme uses a ‘creative bystander’ approach to prevent bullying and gender-based violence. This workshop demonstrated how an MVP session works, and described how the model could be used and sustained within a secondary school setting. This workshop involved pupils from Portobello High School and Calderhead High School, who assisted with facilitating the session.

Key lessons learned included:

  • Violence is on a spectrum – from words to suicide. People don’t always recognise violence.
  • Silence is an action. Staying silent has impacts and results. People need to think about what message doing nothing sends.
  • Activities to break down the group norm are important – so that people can see that bully attitudes are in the minority.
  • Exploring the consequences of a wide range of options can help people to see that every action has consequences, and taking decisions can be hard.

Developing a Community Safety Hub in Renfrewshire

This workshop explored the journey Renfrewshire Council and its partners are taking to support a more holistic approach to deliver safer and stronger outcomes, including developing a community safety hub in Paisley. Key lessons learned included:

  • The community safety hub has allowed for co-ordinated tasking across partner organisations, in a flexible way – at a strategic, tactical and operational level.
  • Key services are based within Council offices. Basing Police Analysts in Council premises was a challenge, requiring a lot of work around strengthening IT security. This was tackled bit by bit, with requirements gradually fully met.
  • Wardens were initially very popular with communities, but weren’t tasked with achieving particular outcomes. Now warden activity is strongly linked to intelligence about what is happening in communities, with daily tasking looking 24 hours back and 24 hours ahead – with a clear focus on community safety enforcement in areas where there are problems.
  • In setting up a Hub it was essential that there was an entrepreneurial approach to funding, that the workforce was retrained and that wardens were sent where needed.
  • There were some challenges – particularly around information sharing and supporting some partners, such as Social Work, to see the real value of the approach.

Evidence Base on What Works to Reduce Crime

This workshop covered the latest crime trends from the Scottish Crime and Justice Survey, and outlined what works to reduce crime based on the Building Safer Communities Programme’s evidence review (currently being finalised for publication). Key lessons learned included:

  • People are deterred from offending by policing and punishment, but also through social norms. A well maintained area can send a message that crime is not accepted, and involving communities in maintaining their own neighbourhood can strengthen that link.
  • Fundamental attitudes to gender, sex and what it means to be a man need to change in order to address domestic violence. This requires wide ranging work – for example around music videos and lyrics; film content; and computer games.
  • There may be a need to reconsider how crimes are defined, given the rise of cyber crime and sexting – much of which is not reported.
  • Early intervention – including work with parents and schools – can have a key role in preventing negative attitudes and behaviours developing.

FURTHER INFORMATION

Copies of all presentations made during the plenary session and workshops are available here.