nationalCommunitySafetyPlan200811 - Staffordshire County Council

26 NATIONAL COMMUNITY SAFETY PLAN 2008–11
■ To provide support for any CDRPs that need and
want it – initially through Government Offi ces and
Police and Crime Standards Directorate consultancy
work, and in the longer term through the National
Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA), the Local
Government Association and the Improvement and
Development Agency for local government (IDeA)
– while at the same time encouraging a sector-led
improvement approach that sets clear objectives
and milestones for improvement, with escalation to
stronger interventions if necessary.
■ To monitor trends in CDRP performance and,
where these threaten to put national PSA delivery
at risk, to feed into Government Offi ce reviews of
LAAs. Where necessary, to seek to agree changes to
LAA targets at the fi rst possible review point.
The Home Offi ce will not be setting improvement
targets for partnerships outside the LAA process,
but will continue to monitor and support CDRPs as
described above.
Police and CDRP performance will be monitored
through APACS. The Policing Performance
Assessment Framework (PPAF) was introduced in
2004, and APACS have been developed as its successor.
The main changes are as follows.
■ APACS will cover policing and community safety
issues in a balanced way that refl ects relative
seriousness. (E.g. the previous framework did not
give enough weight to important issues such as
terrorism, violence and protective services, and
many people felt that it set a perverse incentive
and failed to give credit to improvement in these
important areas.)
■ APACS will recognise that agencies other than the
Police Service are crucial to success in terms of the
Government’s crime and community safety goals.
They will promote joint working through a single
measurement framework agreed with partners and
aligned with other performance frameworks.
■ APACS will refl ect the priorities set out in the
Government’s new Crime Strategy and the PSAs.
■ APACS will support a balanced regime of
accountability, building on the roles of partners
locally, regionally and nationally – and within the
framework – to allow a realistic balance between
nationally and locally identifi ed priorities.
■ APACS will be aligned with the performance
frameworks for other public services.
■ APACS will make the best use of performance
data, diagnostic data, local data and professional
judgements in producing analysis and assessments
that:
– show whether services are effective, equitable and
provide value for money, and whether they are
perceived as such;
– refl ect relevant PSAs, other strategic priorities and
standards, the priorities for improvement agreed
between local partnerships and the Government
for inclusion in the LAA, as well as performance
against locally chosen priorities for improvement;
– use data that is focused on results (outcomes), but
with the capability to use data for inputs, processes
or outputs; and
– can monitor the implementation of key
operational strategies such as neighbourhood
policing, alcohol misuse and drug enforcement.
The Local Government White Paper identifi ed that
1,200 existing indicators were being reported to the
Government by local authorities. These have now been
reduced to an NIS of 198, covering the full range of
national priorities delivered by local authorities working
alone or in partnership in England. The list of NIS
indicators is currently being consulted on, and all the
indicators that are relevant to crime and community
safety are included in APACS.
Local authorities and partners in England will be
expected to continue to deliver across all of the
national priorities monitored through the NIS.
However, from April 2008, new LAAs will set a
maximum of 35 improvement targets from the NIS.