1. Improving Community Safety through Partnerships
John Curtis, Deputy Director for Community Safety, Government Office for the West Midlands

2. Partnership Working
“In community safety, it has become ever more evident that a range of organisations and agencies working together deliver more effective and long lasting solutions than any one agency working alone.”
Delivering Safer Communities: A guide to effective partnership working

3. Partnership Working BUT………partnerships must be equipped to deliver
As well as understanding the full breadth of crime and community safety issues in their area and demonstrating effective action to address them, partnerships are also expected to improve their skills and processes in order to do this.
In the West Midlands, we are trying to help them do this 3

4. West Midlands Region 4 county areas
32 CDRPs
4 county areas
largest CDRP in the country (Birmingham)
several small district CDRPs
number of unitaries
currently well on track to meet agreed regional PSA1 crime reduction target

5. West Midlands Issues
Our work with the West Midlands partnerships identified certain issues:
Generally low levels of understanding around problem solving and analysis
Need for better sharing of effective practice between partners
Potential for peer support arrangements

6. Problem Solving
GOWM funded a 6 week training course on problem solving over a 3 month period in early 2007
Led by Nick Tilley and Gloria Laycock of the Jill Dando Institute
64 delegates from across the West Midlands partnerships attended the course
Course covered:
theory and practice of problem-solving
development of local strategic plans for the delivery of reductions in relation to a specific identified problem
monitoring implementation and effect

7. Networking and Support within the West Midlands
Bi-monthly networking meetings with partnerships facilitated and hosted by GOWM
Developing arrangements to share effective practice between partnerships
Supporting partnerships who submit entries to the Tilley awards
Developing toolkits for partnerships around key elements of the Hallmarks
Supporting partnerships with strategic assessments and partnership plans

8. Peer Mentoring Peer mentoring pilot underway within the region
Follows feedback from partnerships at regional Hallmarks event in November
Around 40 delegates attending training days in early March
Peer support arrangements to be set up following training
GOWM will evaluate the pilot and develop arrangements accordingly 8

9. Why were the Hallmarks introduced?
Into the Future
Will continue to support partnerships to develop and share experiences in order to perform effectively in line with Home Office priorities:
LAAs
Crime Strategy and new violent crime action plan
new Drugs Strategy
new PSAs and APACS performance management arrangements
Home Office priorities in LAAs

10. Other Support
National Community Safety Network
Action Against Business Crime
Crime Reduction website
Government Offices