Community Safety - Definition and Background

Definition

"The term 'community safety' is seen as having both situational and social aspects, as well as being concerned with people, communities and organisations, including families, victims, and risk groups as well as attempting to reduce particular types of crime and the fear of crime. Community Safety should be seen as the legitimate concern of all in the local community.” Source: Safer Communities, Home Office 1991.

Crime and Disorder Act 1998

The Morgan Report 1991 “Safer Communities: the Local Delivery of Crime Prevention through the Partnership Approach”, highlighted the need for broadly based multi-agency approaches to crime prevention and reduction. The Crime and Disorder Act 1998 is legislation in accordance with the Labour Party’s manifesto commitment to give effect to the Morgan Report 1991. The working group, chaired by James Morgan recommended that multi-agency approaches to crime prevention and reduction, should involve the statutory, voluntary and business sectors within these partnerships. He identified one of the biggest barriers to progress as being the lack of a statutory role for local authorities and recommended that such a statutory duty to develop these partnerships should be created and placed on local authorities. This is one of the key implications of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 and has been further developed by the Police Reform Act 2002.

The Crime and Disorder Act itself is huge piece of legislation which aimed to tackle many issues relating to crime, disorder and youth offending. The key sections of the act relating to partnerships are:

Sections 5-6 – Partnerships, Audits and Strategies
Section 17 – Mainstreaming Community Safety
Section 115 - Information Sharing

Sections 5 & 6 of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 have subsequently been amended by the Crime and Disorder (Formulaton and Implementation of Strategy) Regulations 2007 which now require responsible authorities to convene a Strategy Group to:

Prepare an annual strategic assessment
Prepare and implement an annual Partnership Plan
Ensure that an Information Sharing Protocol is in place to facilitate information sharing between partners
Consult the community who live or work in the local area concerning the levels of crime, disorder and substance misuse and what issues the Community Safety Partnership should prioritise.

Within County Durham there are also statutory responsibilites at a County Level to:

Convene a county strategy group
Prepare a County Community Safety Agreement

Section 17 of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 requires local authorities to mainstream community safety in all of their activities by considering the implications for crime and disorder in the carrying out of their duties, and do all that they reasonably can to prevent it. The Police and Justice Act 2006 widened these statutory responsibilities in respect of Section 17 to also include anti-social and other behaviour adversely affecting the local environment and the misuse of drugs, alcohol and other substances.

Section 17 also applies to Police Authorities and National Park Authorities. The Police Reform Act 2002 placed this statutory requirement onto the Fire and Rescue Authority. The wording of the Act states: “17. - (1) Without prejudice to any other obligation imposed on it, it shall be the duty of each authority to which this section applies to exercise its various functions with due regard to the likely effect of the exercise of those functions on, and the. Further information on Section 17 and how it applies to staff at Durham County Council.

Police Reform Act 2002

This is: "An Act to make new provision about the supervision, administration, functions and conduct of police forces, police officers and other persons serving with, or carrying out functions in relation to, the police; to amend police powers and to provide for the exercise of police powers by persons who are not police officers; to amend the law relating to anti-social behaviour orders; to amend the law relating to sex offender orders; and for connected purposes."

The Police Reform Act 2002 made further changes which impacted on the work of Community Safety Partnerships. The Act implements those parts of the police reform programme that required primary legislation.

The main provisions of the Act:

Introduce an Annual Policing Plan setting out the Government's strategic priorities for policing over the coming year and require police authorities to produce a three year strategy plan consistent with the national policing plan.
Provide powers to ensure the consistent application of good practice across the country through statutory codes of practice and a power to make regulations governing policing practices and procedures.
Provide powers to require a police force to take remedial action (to be set out in an action plan submitted by the Police Authority to the Home Secretary) where they are judged by HMIC to be inefficient or ineffective.
Strengthen police authorities' powers to require the early departure of, or to suspend, a chief constable in the public interest.
Enable chief officers to designate police authority support staff as Community Support Officers, investigating officers, detention officers or escort officers in order to support police officers in tackling low level crime and anti-social behaviour and to free up officers for front line duties.
Introduce arrangements for the accreditation of members of the 'extended police family' (e.g. neighbourhood and street wardens).
Establish new independent arrangements for the investigation of complaints against the police and the Independent Police Complaints Commission.
Modify certain police powers, including by adding to the list of arrestable offences, placing independent custody visiting on a statutory footing, and conferring a power on a medical practitioner to take a blood sample from an unconscious driver.
Enhancing police powers to deal with the anti-social use of motor vehicles on public roads or off-road.
Enhancing the effectiveness of anti-social behaviour orders (ASBOs) and sex offender orders, including by introducing interim orders.
Remove the bar on the recruitment of foreign nationals as police officers.
Enable the National Crime Squad (NCS) and National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS) to recruit police officers directly from police forces rather than rely on secondments and open up the post of Director General of NCIS to non-police officers.

Section 97 provides for police authorities, fire authorities and Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) to become responsible authorities alongside chief officers and local authorities, for the purpose of formulating and implementing crime and disorder reduction strategies under section 6 of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998. The addition of PCTs should enable Drug and Alcohol Action Teams and Community Safety Partnerships to be merged to simplify working relations at a local level.

Section 98 provides that the Secretary of State may require responsible authorities to make provision in their strategies for specified areas of crime and disorder. This section also requires responsible authorities to send copies of their strategies to the Home Secretary.

You can find more information about Community Safety legislation on the Home Office website

Find out about the Community Safety Partnerships in County Durham.

For new members of Community Safety Partnerships please browse our Partnership Induction page