Question
Can the Chief Constable provide the Committee with a written response which outlines District Commanders’ assessment of PCSP effectiveness in each Council area.
Answer
Police District Commanders enjoy positive relationships with Policing and Community Safety Partnerships across Northern Ireland. In each District the partnership working arrangement leads to positive community safety outcomes for local communities.
That said, as with any structure or function which has been in place for some time, issues do arise which provide the basis for further development and improvements.
Consultation with District Commanders has highlighted the following areas of consideration:
- A consensus across many Commanders that the PCSP structure and function is heavily weighted towards an emphasis on police and policing as a solution provider, thereby not fully exploring nor leveraging the wider range of available partners and their resources. This inhibits the potential of PCSPs to deliver for local communities and develop a wider ‘community safety ethos’.
- A number of Commanders indicated that PCSP members would benefit from additional support and development in their role so as to maximise their potential within the partnerships.
- The Belfast PCSP is a unique structure with four Area PCSPs and an overarching PCSP. This can lead to inconsistency of approach but also significant repetition in terms of administration, governance and, therefore, costs. This may be an opportune time to review these arrangements.
- There is likely also an opportunity at this point, given the developments in such areas as ‘Multi-Agency Concern Hubs’, to review the overall vision and strategy for PCSPs and how we align the many excellent examples of their work to fully support the Northern Ireland Policing Board Policing Plan within the current and developing landscape. It may be particularly relevant to identify where gaps or overlap with other statutory functions, such as safeguarding.
- PCSPs bring together key agencies but there would be benefit in considering to what extent outcomes are visible, accessible and understandable to the public.
- PCSPs are uniquely placed to coordinate crime prevention and problem solving work. There is a growing body of evidence based practice internationally as to “what works” in this field. Sharing a problem solving approach across PCSPs supported by training and access to emerging good practice ideas, could see significant impact in this regard. Linked to this, an ethos across the network of PCSPs to reflective evaluation of activity and sharing of results would support a facilitative culture of practice.
- Mind-set – to what extend are PCSP’s outward looking, for example, embracing a public health approach to enduring problems, assessing the impact of initiatives such as Violence Reduction Units and county lines drug dealing, prevalent in England and Wales from a Northern Ireland context
- Data science and best use of available information should shape crime prevention activity. Providing the network of PCSPs with analytical capability and access to shared partner data sets would be an important practice in further developing the capability of PCSPs alongside ‘visualisation’ of data to make it relevant and timely.