Planning ahead for ASB: the multi-agency approach in Scotland

As you know working with partner agencies is the key to making changes.  Scottish organisations agencies are doing precisely this, with results are already emerging from their joined-up approach.

 Hawick is a prime example of what can be achieved by putting an ASB action plan in place. After an alarming number of ASB incidents in the Scottish Boarders town, council, police and housing staff  went door-to-door, to visit residents. The purpose of the visit was to reassure victims of ASB that help was at hand. Each household was given an information guide on how to report and deal with nuisance behaviour.  Anti-social behaviour traditionally rises over the Christmas period and Hawick’s organisations hope that more ASB will be reported and dealt with, as a result of the planning.

Throughout the town, agencies are urging communities to speak up about their problems. By reporting people or addresses, social landlords can address the issue with support from the police and council, where necessary.

Multi agency working is a key part of ReACT’s strategy for the New Year. Having launched a fantastic pilot in Northern Ireland, we are keen to support more partnership work between social landlords, councils and police. (If you are wondering how this is possible, please call Kate Hill or Paul Johns on 0121 384 2513 for more information).

Communication is vital to make partnership working effective and we can see from Hawick that combined action on  ASB really can help. Tenants also get to hear about the efforts being made on their behalf, from extra patrols to the enforcement of by-laws on drinking. (Lothian Police ASB campaign)  

 A final note to say, thank you all for supporting the ReACT blog throughout the year, it has been a great year, full of news and stories. From all the team, we wish you all a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year.

By Kate Hill

Related articles

• Can you fight ASB with a DVD or a tweet? (reactasb.wordpress.com)
• Partnership Working (reactasb.wordpress.com)

New twist on social housing eviction for ASB

Image by johnmuk via Flickr

The Government has launched its new housing strategy today; a repackaged mix of old measures and new money to get more homes built. The headline-grabbing measures included;

• “pay to stay” proposals for high earners in social housing (an estimated 6,000 tenants earn over £100,000)
• A  400 million pound building fund, to create 16,000 homes
• A 500 million pound infrastructure fund
• A further £50 million to councils to bring more empty homes into use
• Right-to-buy discounts for council tenants, with the money released to be spent on new social housing
• Underwriting first time buyer’s mortgages for up to 95%

Whilst the Government plans for a building boom, they have also found time to tackle badly-behaved social tenants. Buried in the small print of the document, the Coalition plans to “widen the grounds on which landlords can seek to evict tenants, to include where they or members of their household have been convicted of the sort of criminality see in the recent rioting, wherever that took place .”  Up until this point, anti-social behavior outside of the tenant’s local area did not count. Now it does.

In one way, the Government’s hard-line approach is welcome. As our hot-spotting tracker on Google Maps can demonstrate, ASB is rarely confined to one street or estate. It’s just as easy to transport bad behavior to the town centre as the local park. In the past, ASB was seen as a civil matter, with little police involvement. However, with increased data sharing and best practice (see Mike’s article on the West Mercia seminar), this is changing. ASB is now seen as a criminal matter, to be dealt with at a local level by the newly elected Police Commissioners.

The danger is that the “fast track” approach does not give problem families enough breathing space to turn over a new leaf. A wayward teenager could quickly see their Friday night activity turn into a criminal conviction and a threat to the family home. (Remember the Government’s consultation on mandatory powers of possession for landlords, when tenants are convicted of ASB?). Turning such behaviour around requires time and energy, as the Family Intervention Project in Sandwell can testify.

Interestingly enough, the Government has not imposed any new regulations on private landlords, citing an 85% satisfaction rate from tenants.

By Natalie Phillips   

Related articles

• Police seminar on ASB trials (reactasb.wordpress.com)

Police seminar on ASB trials

The purpose of this seminar organised and hosted by West Mercia Police in Worcester on 9^th November was to have an update on the police trials involving eight police forces in England and Wales. Around 150 delegates attended, mainly ranking police officers but also representatives from housing associations and local authorities. Simon Edens Assistant Chief Constable of West Mercia Police is the ACPO national lead on ASB so I believe that the force is influential in the future direction of how the police will deal with complaints and incidents in future.

Chief Inspector Jim Baker of West Mercia Police said that “harm” is now the prime criteria for the police; the intention is to simply the reporting process, identify who is best to deal with ASB and importantly to share information. He said there are too many tools, powers and too much bureaucracy. The ideal aim is have “an end to end case management system from initial call to resolution of the case to the victim’s satisfaction”. Not sure if he means nationally or by police force – I assume the latter.

Jim Baker identified the need for better use of technology to share incident and personal profile information using a data platform, a common set of casework principles and an agreed risk assessment matrix with more use of IT systems. He welcomed the move to the three new definitions of ASB of personal, nuisance and environmental.

Peter Alleyne of the Home Office started by saying that a staggering 3.3 million (9,000 per day) ASB incidents had been recorded by police in 2010/11 and that this is considered to be a low figure. It is now recognised that much ASB is actually crime and can cause serious harm to victims and communities. Government’s priority, not withstanding the economic situation, is that police and their partners must deal with ASB. There will be no “directives” from government and no “targets” The expectation is that Police and Crime Commissioners will reflect elector’s priorities with ASB high on their agendas. The next steps are feedback from the police trials, to build on the experiences and share it with others but the underlying message is localism – what works for communities.

Geraldine Brown also from the Home Office presented an overview of the findings to date from the police trials. She identified partnership working as a key element (no surprise there then!) with co-location (police sharing office space with partners, especially housing associations) as being particularly effective. The allocation of responsibility with the police being the lead agency may not always be the best way to deal with incidents e.g. social housing landlords could be better placed in some instances. On risk and the identification of possible harm it should not be the sole responsibility of the police and the matrix must be a guide and talking to victims and making a professional judgement was essential. Data Protection is a barrier with incompatibility of IT systems being common, however workarounds are now being found.

Barriers to better working were given as an embedded culture, police preferring to deal with crime and tending to ignore ASB or give it a low priority, engaging with mental health, bureaucracy, IT (again and again), call centre performance, number of agencies (partners), police force boundaries and the financial climate and staff resources.

Jim Baker talked about the West Mercia trial based on Telford & Wrekin with ASB being dealt with alongside Wrekin Housing Trust. Of 2691 calls received between April and September 2011, 158 were referred to the police. The team achieved a 23% reduction in ASB reporting in one year. They identified, on average, one high risk case per month, 13 medium risk and 38 for the force area. Hate crime was revealed as most the vulnerable group and most reluctant victims to complain. Friction over sharing of information causes delays.

There were 4 plenary sessions with presentations from various police forces on:-

1. Risk Assessment.
2. Culture Change -Sussex Police spoke about the need to train front line officers in ASB and to take it much more seriously than they do now.
3. Data Sharing and IT – great interest in this with no recommendations or conclusions other than the urgent need to find a way that is cost effective and “works”and that current DP legislation is a major issue.
4. Partnership Working.

Conclusion:

It was a very worthwhile and informative day. A great deal of progress has been made and the police accept their lead role in tackling ASB but with some reluctance from rank and file police officers. Data protection and sharing of information remains a major problem with most sharing being at the local level, informal and by word of mouth. The chances of an early resolution to data sharing is, in my view very low and for me the catch phrase that sums it up is “Dare to Share”.

Mike Blomer

Related articles

• Tackling ASB: the new reality (reactasb.wordpress.com)

SLCNG Awards 2011

It was another successful conference this year, with a record number of attendees and a great awards dinner at the St John’s Hotel, Solihull.

Mike and Kate attended the two-day conference and were delighted to see so many delegates contributing to the discussions, sharing both concerns and good practice. There was a general feeling of organisations doing so much for communities and applying the localism bill; however, the tools aren’t always available to complete work.

It was disappointing that Minister Grant Shapps was unable to attend at the last hour; delegates were looking forward to getting some answers for some of their long-standing questions. Baroness Helen Newlove proved to be a worthy replacement, speaking of her tragic loss and work she does to help communities tackle anti-social behaviour. However, there was a general feeling that questions couldn’t be asked of Baroness Newlove – landlords want answers and guidance from government about the direction of tackling ASB.

And the winner is…

Powerful video clips were shown of the shortlisted nominees for the SLCNG Awards 2011, prior to the awards ceremony. With 300 people in attending the dinner, there was both passion and interest in the room for the work on display.

• The Team Award, sponsored by ourselves went to North Tyneside Homes Safer Estates Team
• The Residents Award, sponsored by Glasgow Housing Association went to Daniel Lusardi and Rhys Farthing, Homes for Islington.
• The Best Practice Award, sponsored by HouseMark went to Contour Homes, Victims Champion Project.
• And the Tim Winter Award, sponsored by SLCNG went to Linda Alcock New Progress Housing Association.

Congratulations to all four categories and to the runners-up.  The work that is being done is fantastic.

An entertaining after dinner speaker, Chief Political Correspondent for Radio 5 Live, John Pienaar completed a great first day at SLCNG Conference 2011.

 By Kate Hill

Tackling ASB: the new reality

Social housing providers have tackled anti-social behaviour on their estates for decades – but their work is often under-represented or ignored. With fresh legislation proposed and the advent of the Police and Crime Commissioners, it is a good time to take stock and see how the situation can be improved.

Social Landlord’s Crime & Nuisance Group (SLCNG)  has just issued a new briefing document, looking at ways in which landlords and Government can work together effectively. Their recommendations range from information-sharing and the use of the landlord’s consortia to consistent strategy and planning from the Government. Along with the new RESPECT charter, the recommendations offer a realistic framework for the year ahead.

The document also has case studies from SLCNG members, such as Liverpool Mutual Homes, Glasgow Housing Association and the Coventry consortium. Together, they demonstrate what can be achieved when councils, police and housing providers work together on ASB issues.

Download the PDF: Facing up to a new reality for ASB

Can you fight ASB with a DVD or a tweet?

Image by michperu via Flickr

Three-quarters of people arrested for rioting this summer were under 25 and 90% of them were homeless (Guardian stats). Whilst this was not a surprise, it was a wake-up call for society about the problems of the “Neet generation”.  The Government promptly produced a guide for tackling gang violence and pledged more money for solving the problem. A lot of attention was drawn to the cuts in youth services and charity funding for unemployed youngsters. But very little was said about initiatives that are proven to work.

Here at ReACT, we often keep an eye on what Housing Associations are doing to tackle ASB and improve their tenant’s lives. Here are our top four picks:

1. Acceptable Behaviour Contracts: These are popular and widespread, but statistics are hard to come by. Kirklees Council published the results of their three-year scheme, back in May with an encouraging 75% success rate across 660 interventions.

2. The multi-media approach: The Vale of Glamorgan uses a combination of letters, meeting and DVDs to educate misbehaving youngsters about the error of their ways. The DVD features young people who volunteered to talk about their regret at causing ASB. It is hoped that the video will help change the offender’s behavior, before the council applies for an ASBO. Video testimonials are considered a powerful way to alter behavior by the advertising industry and may have the same effect her

3. The social media approach: Landlords can only tackle ASB when they are told about it. The trick is trying to involve the community, with falling responses to postal surveys and estate walks. In response, housing officers have increased their communications to Twitter and Facebook, as a way to reach the younger, mobile generation. Wherry Housing and Solihull Community Housing have already reported success with this approach, from panel discussions to ASB Consultations. Read the full article in the Guardian.

 4. The activity club: Youth schemes are popular, but their achievements are rarely backed up with hard data. Grantham’s Police Force proved to be the exception to the rule, setting up a summer activity club to explicitly reduce anti-social behavior. They exceeded their target, with the full backing of the community.   

In each case, the council or housing association had a target or measure in mind, when they set up the scheme – making it easier to manage and monitor the results. Have you done the same in your community? Let us know about your success, via the comment box, below!

By Natalie Phillips

Related articles

• Taking action against ASB (reactasb.wordpress.com)
• The new “Respect – ASB Charter for Housing” (reactasb.wordpress.com)

Partnership Working

Image via Wikipedia

An excellent example of close partnership working has been piloted and rolled out in Doncaster recently; the objective is to stop low level ASB cases escalating to bigger problems. The Council and the police community support officers have collaborated to patrol areas seven days a week to reduce those incidents becoming problems. A 30-strong team, comprising of council’s enforcement officers and PCSO’s have had an impact and are sure that ASB incidents have reduced.

The Mayor of Doncaster and members of public are 100% supporting the initiative and want to make sure that the people who “have got the idea that they can do what they like, can’t do that in Doncaster any more – we’re not tolerating it”.

This shows how important it is for agencies to work together in tackling ASB; with more and more similar initiatives being rolled out across the UK, we hope to hear results that reflect those in Doncaster.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-14715757

We would love to hear about your work and experiences. Please add a comment to the blog, below.

By Kate Hill

Families, funding, riots and budgets; the latest Government announcements

Image by James Cridland via Flickr

Social Landlords Crime & Nusiance Group sends out regular bulletins to their members. We requested their permission to publish this one, as the public policy announcments on rioters, problem families and gang culture will affect us all.

Government response to ‘riots’

 Amongst the intense media reporting of last month’s riots and what the Government’s response should be  arereports that Louise Casey has been asked by David Cameron to lead on how the Government should intervene with Families at Risk.

The Spectator, for example, has it that DCLG will take sole charge of the government’s proposed family-intervention programme and it is anticipated that Ms. Casey will be appointed to help communities secretary Eric Pickles deal with the 120,000 families of most concern.

In her speech to the Police Superintendents Association earlier this week, the Home Secretary signalled a clear intention on the part of government to apply interventionist approaches to deal with the ‘gang culture’ thought to have played a significant role in the August ‘riots’: the Home Secretary said:

“The riots also provided us with a reminder of the importance of doing much more to deal with gangs and gang culture. The Met currently believe that around one in five rioters and looters were linked to gangs. And more than three quarters of those charged had previous convictions.

 Together with Iain Duncan Smith, I am now leading work across government to look at how we can tackle each and every stage of the gang ‘life-cycle’. That means starting by preventing young people joining gangs in the first place; diverting them away from gangs if they are tempted to join; disrupting gang activity; tough enforcement of the law against gang crime; and forcing gang members to take responsibility for their actions and to repair the damage done.

We are going around the country, talking to police forces and other agencies about the problems and best practice in solving them. We will publicly set out our plans by the end of October.”

Funding for preventive and intensive intervention dissemination hubs

The Government wants to set up 10 ‘Dissemination Hubs’ around the country, using clusters of Local Authorities and other partners willing to work and learn together.

Hubs will be a centre to develop local partners as learning organisations, absorbing and acting on the evidence on the outcomes and cost effectiveness of early, preventive and intensive intervention to support families with multiple problems (FwMP).

The objective is to increase the quantity and quality of family intervention services by disseminating to practitioners, service managers, strategic directors and lead members the evidence about what works in family intervention, and the big cost savings that local authorities and their partners can make, over time, by using early and intensive intervention with FwMP – saving money on children going into care, re-housing, fewer court cases, less anti-social behaviour, fewer workless households, etc.

Ideally, hubs will be geographically dispersed and take on a theme as well as a geographic responsibility. Each successful area will receive grant of £50,000 this year and next year.

Further information has been posted on the Department for Education’s website – please follow this link.  

Community Budget Seminars

Warwick Business School is understood to be running 4 seminars as part of its Local Government Consortium work. They are to take place in three phase 1 Community Budget areas, – Leicestershire, Birmingham, and Coventry – and will showcase some of their work with families with multiple problems. The dates for and the focus of each of the seminars are understood to be:

• Leicestershire October 6 – what works well.
• Birmingham October 14 – use of the Family CAF
• Tameside November 14 – very local level budgets
• Coventry TBC for early 2012 – the learning partnership across Coventry, Solihull and Warwickshire.

Places are free but limited and will be allocated on a ‘first come, first served’ basis. Contact Irene.Chinnock@wbs.ac.uk by September 28 to book a place.

Free Community Budgets Leaders Event – 17 October 2011

The Deputy Prime Minister had previously announced plans to roll out Community Budgets more widely with 50 more authorities being signed up by the end of this year and a further 60 during 2012-2013.

In furtherance of this initiative a free event is being held in London to update delegates on the next phase of Community Budgets, including “how to improve the lives of 120,000 families with complex needs, and provide an opportunity to debate and discuss key issues.”

The event is aimed at Council Leaders, Cabinet members, Chief Executives, and their partners, who would be interested in one or more aspects of Community Budgets. The event is free to LGA members but there may be a £100 (ex VAT) charge to non LGA members. Follow this link for more information and the booking form.  

With thanks and acknowledgements to Eamon Lynch.

Related articles

• UK riots: Cameron kicks off social policy review (guardian.co.uk)

Calling for nominations: SLCNG awards & conference

The SLCNG annual conference is an important must for all ASB practitioners and takes place at the St. Johns Hotel, Solihull near Birmingham on 1^st and 2^nd November.

An integral part of the conference is the Awards Ceremony which takes place at the conference dinner on the evening of the first day – Tuesday 1^st November. There are four awards:-

The Tim Winter Award

This award is open to any employee of an SLCNG member organisation who has gone above and beyond their remit and has tackled anti-social behaviour effectively. This could be someone who has been innovative, someone who has been creative or someone who has simply been determined and inspirational.

The Best Practice Award (sponsored by HouseMark)

This award is open to any project or initiative demonstrating measurable improvement in reducing anti-social behaviour and increasing community confidence. The project or initiative may be specific to a particular neighbourhood or may be targeted on a particular client group or issue. For example, teams working with vulnerable witnesses, young people or ex-offenders; or teams that focus on local priorities such as burglary, arson and hate crime, would all be eligible.

The Residents Award (sponsored by Glasgow Housing Association)

Standing up against anti – social behaviour requires exceptional courage. This award recognises the bravery and courage of an individual or a group of local residents who have taken a personal stand against antisocial behaviour.

The Team Award (sponsored by ReACT)

This award is for a group or a team that has provided an exceptional service in resolving antisocial behaviour in a specific neighbourhood. The team could be located within a single organisation or be drawn from across a range of local agencies and the community. The judges are looking for a team that has worked together to achieve shared goals and can demonstrate measurable results.

The closing date for nominations is Friday 2^nd September so time for your nomination is fast running out!

Full information and the application form is available at www.slcng.org.uk/event/49

Home Office cuts ASB team in half

Image via Wikipedia

The Home Office is slashing the number of people who work in its anti-social behaviour team by half.

The 14-strong team has been reduced to seven members following staff restructuring at the department, coming at a busy time for the team, which is carrying out a review of ASB powers that began in July last year.

ASB overhaul: the proposals

• Criminal behaviour order available on conviction for any criminal offence
• Crime prevention injunction a civil order
• Police direction power a power to direct any individual away from a specified place
• Community protection order (level 1) a notice to stop persistent anti-social behaviour that is affecting quality of life in an area
• Community protection order (level 2) a local authority/ police power to restrict use of a property

Eamon Lynch, managing director of the Social Landlords’ Crime and Nuisance Group, said: ‘The Home Office anti-social behaviour unit has just been sliced in half. I don’t know why this has happened right in the middle of major reform – it just seems a very odd time. We have asked for the funding [for these posts] to be continued but this was politely declined.’

The review seeks to reduce the number of powers available to the police and landlords from 18 to just five. Social landlords have been asked to identify ASB ‘hotspots’ as part of the consultation.

According to ‘Inside Housing’ The Home Office refused to comment on personnel issues. A spokesperson said: ‘ASB is a priority for this government as set out in the coalition document and the Home Office business plan.’

By Paul Johns