The consultation on the Community Strategy identified crime, and the fear of crime, as one of the main concerns of the local community. We are committed to working with the Police, District Councils, Health, Probation and Fire and Rescue and voluntary bodies to deliver priorities identified by local Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships. We have a successful multi-agency Youth Offending Service and have assumed lead responsibility for the Drug (and Alcohol) Action Team. We recognise that we will only achieve targets to reduce crime and the fear of crime by working in close co-operation with our partners in other agencies.

Across the County there was an increase in total recorded crime last year, following a slight decline in the previous year and a big decline before that. Therefore the trend is showing an increase which may in part be due to changes in the way crime is recorded following implementation of the Police National Crime Recording Standard in April 2002.

We are also committed to promoting community and personal safety within our organisation and the County generally, as well as consumer safety and emergency management.

We recognise that some members of the community feel more vulnerable and need extra support to ensure that they feel safe. Older people, in particular, feel more vulnerable to crime. Our services are working in partnership with the Police and Fire Service, Age Concern and others to be alert to these fears, and are taking action to improve security and personal safety. This includes work to reduce the incidence of sales of age-restricted products and enforcement, and advice concerned with doorstep selling and distraction burglary. We also carry out sampling and testing programmes and awareness raising about the safety aspects of a range of consumer products aimed at promoting safety and reducing accidents in and around the home.

Although major emergencies are infrequent events, when they do occur the public expect the response from all agencies to be swift, professional and effective. We have responsibility to co-ordinate our own and District Councils’ combined response to major incidents. Generally this is done in support of public emergency services and working with the voluntary sector. Much of this work is done within the framework of the Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland Emergency Planning Partnership, and developing regional and national arrangements.

9.2 Progress to Date

The performance of the Youth Offending Service against the 13 performance measures set by the Youth Justice Board has been good, and was 17th out of 154 in the national performance tables for 2002. In 8 of the 13 measures the overall target has been achieved well in advance of the deadline or an interim target. Only 4 measures require real improvement, three of these in partnership with other agencies. The most significant measure of the Service is the level of re-offending by young people, where a reduction of 16.9% has been achieved in the last 12 months, well above the overall target of 5% by December 2004. Action plans to maintain or improve performance across all measures are set out in the Youth Justice Plan.

In other areas we made the following progress against our commitments:

The timetable for completing the joint Best Value review of Crime and Disorder slipped, but it has since been completed and will be reported to members in 2003;
A Youth Crime Prevention Strategy has not been developed. This will now be taken forward in 2003 through the production of the Preventive Strategy;
The new system of Youth Offending Service referral orders was fully implemented;
Planned exercises under the Control of Major Accidents Hazard legislation were delayed due to the fire service dispute (first exercise to be held in June 2003);
Extra resources were provided to enforce new regimes to control livestock movements and the spread of animal disease;
Information initiatives and enforcement activities were undertaken, aimed at reducing accidents in and around the home.

9.3 Priorities for 2003/04 and beyond

In partnership with other agencies we have agreed to achieve specific PSA targets by 2006 in four areas: drugs, young offenders, domestic violence and vehicle crime. The targets for improvement are shown in the following table.

PI	PI Description	Actuals 01/02	Actuals 02/03	Targets 05/06	Targets 06/07
LF1	Number of problem drug users in Leicestershire in drug treatment programmes.	972	1069	1,150	N/A
LF2	Number of specialist drug agency planned closures in Charnwood and North-West Leicestershire.	39	40	78	N/A
LF3	Number of GPs involved in planned closures of drug users in Charnwood and North-West Leics.	0	0	6	N/A
LF4	Young people with a basic skills deficit completing a Basic Skills Programme.	N/A	N/A	N/A	50%
LF5	Young people with basic skills needs achieving 75% of targets in their Individual Learning Plan.	N/A	17%	N/A	30%
LF6	Young people with basic skills needs successfully gaining an accredited qualification.	N/A	7%	N/A	20%
LF7	Young people with basic skills needs going into full-time education, training or employment.	N/A	52%	N/A	85%
LF10	Number of incidents of domestic violence reported to the police.	4,294		4,852	N/A
LF11	Repeat incidents of domestic violence	2,056		1,612	N/A
LF12	Number of statement retractions by domestic violence victims.	32		25	N/A
LF13	Number of domestic violence perpetrators successfully completing the core perpetrator programme.	10		13	N/A
	Number of vehicle crimes reported.	8,379	7,662	6,961	N/A

In addition we will:

Take steps to implement the agreed findings of the Best Value review of crime and disorder, including the development of partnership working. This will include producing a strategy to improve our contribution to agreed priorities in local crime and disorder reduction and other community safety strategies. The Youth Offending Service and Drug (and Alcohol) Action Team will also be taking steps to improve co-ordination with local crime and disorder reduction partnerships.
Implement priorities in the Youth Justice Plan, including:
Prioritising improvement in those national performance measures where current performance has not already been achieved or in advance of targets;
Developing further intervention programmes with young offenders;
Implementing Youth Inclusion and Support Panels through the Children’s Fund as part of the development of the youth crime prevention strategy;
Further development of monitoring and evaluation of the work of the YOS.
Undertake the operational assessment of emergency management arrangements in the light of national, regional and local expectations and circumstances;
Work on a range of initiatives to promote safety in and around people’s homes, involving new and ongoing activities, including;
A programme of inspection and testing of domestic hire equipment, and publicity to help prevent accidents to people working in their gardens;
Work in partnership with Charnwood Borough Council and Loughborough University to investigate safety of upholstered furniture in rented accommodation;
Work in partnership with other agencies to highlight and prevent the risk of fire in the home from unsafe electric blankets;
Carrying out publicity and enforcement activities aimed at restricting the availability of alcohol, knives and butane gas lighter fuel to young people.
The Drug (and Alcohol) Action Team will also be working to:
Reduce waiting times for residential drug treatment services;
Pilot (in conjunction with Leicester City and Rutland) a pooled budget for young people’s substance misuse services;
Improve the accessibility of services in rural areas.

Other Sections of this Plan contain information on development of facilities for young people and the pilot work on Identification, Referral and Tracking of children and young people at risk of social exclusion.

Seeking A Safer County - Best Value Performance Indicators

Best Value Contents

Page Last Updated: 30 June 2003