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Making the Case for Community Safety - Chairs

and Leads Event 2019

On 28th May 2019, SCSN held an event for Community Safety Partnership (CSP) Chairs

and Lead Officers, entitled ‘Making the Case for Community Safety.’ The event

aimed to encourage information sharing and networking within the community safety

sector at a strategic level and provide delegates with an opportunity to consider

emerging themes and influence future developments.

The day consisted of inputs from national partners on current and future work, question

and answer sessions and opportunities to network. During the lunch hour, attendees

also took part in a joint ‘horizon scan’ activity.

The speakers shared an overview of key areas of interest that their

organisation is involved in, and how it relates to safer communities, particularly for

partnership Chairs and Lead Officers. The first session’s speakers focused on the wider

determinants of community safety and the national picture, the second session

focused on safer communities and partners.

Lorraine Gillies, SCSN Chief Officer, opened the event by setting the scene in terms of

making the case for community safety, explaining the format of the day and the

learning outcomes. Lorraine also launched SCSN’s new strategic plan which was

coproduced with members and stakeholders earlier in 2019.

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During session one and two, speakers gave a brief presentation and finished with a

challenge/question/prompt/call to action to the audience. Once all speakers had

spoken there was a discussion and question and answer session where delegates had

the opportunity to reflect on the prompt from the speakers. Questions were taken

verbally and using www.slido.com.

In the break, attendees were able to contribute to our horizon scan (soon to be

published) looking at future developments that could impact upon the community

safety sector, and suggested ways in which we could deal with the challenges and

opportunities they might offer.

This learning report pulls together a summary of each presentation (including links to

presentations and videos of the inputs) alongside the main discussion points from the

questions and answer sessions, some of our own reflections and feedback from

attendees to give readers a sense of the day and the major learning points.

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Session one

Liz talked about ‘Big Concept’ community planning (CP), the scale and structure

of Community Planning Partnerships (CPPs) and where Community Safety fits in.

She discussed the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015, the wider

policy landscape and what it means in practice.

Some key highlights from the presentation were:

The results of the CP Officials Survey results mentioned CPPs are still mostly

Local Authority (LA) led and resourced, flagging a need to redress the

balance.

A new Community Planning Improvement Board (CPIB) is being developed in

response to a desire for greater national leadership and a body for CP, which

presents many opportunities.

The result of the recent stocktake of Local Outcome Improvement Plans

(LOIPs) was generally positive, highlighting greater us of evidence, better

community engagement and more focus on vulnerable people.

In terms of improvement, LOIPs need a greater focus on inequalities and

detail on what has worked regarding prevention. Liz encouraged CSPs to be

involved in their LOIP development.

Significant variation in LOIP Annual Reports but in general, a move towards

qualitative data used.

Improvement Service have been helping CPPs measure their contribution to

the National Outcomes through the Outcomes Profile online tool. Feedback

welcome.

Locality Plans – fits well with Place standard. Lots of variation in approach.

Call to action – do you know how your CSP fits with your CPP? If it’s not working,

how will you make steps to refresh and improve your partnership?

Presentation and Youtube

Liz Manson, Dumfries & Galloway CPP – Chair of Community Planning Manager's Network

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Gordon gave an introduction to the current successes and challenges in the

safer communities field and the policy landscape including the National

Performance Framework (NPF), the Justice Vision and the Place Principle. He

looked at what community safety is in 2019. Some key highlights from the

presentation were:

Gordon Paterson - Head of Building Safer Communities, Scottish

Government

42% decrease in crime, however, while crime is at a low, we still have

challenges around an ageing population, mental health issues, people who

don’t realise their own vulnerability and addressing inequalities.

Across the 81 national indicators that contribute to CS, 14 are showing

improvement, the majority are maintaining and 9 are worsening e.g.

perceptions of local crime rate. Despite ‘maintaining’ victims of crime are still

disproportionately from areas of deprivation, so we know statistics don’t

always tell the whole story.

Falls are a significant issue to Community Safety. The impact a fall has on

your life chances and isolation is a huge.

Water safety and home safety all link into the Unintentional Harm agenda.

While the numbers are small, the impact is huge e.g. injury from nappy bags,

dishwater tabs.

Question – What is the community safety journey as you move around your towns

and cities? Are we closely linked in to this from a Community Safety

perspective? Where are our safe places? What are the options in your town?

Where does CS sit for you? Is it at the top of the agenda? Does everything else

follow on? Or is it in the middle? At equal focus alongside health, education,

housing? Or is it at the bottom? If everything is right, as a result communities will

be safer? Which way does it go for you?

Presentation and Youtube

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Mark gave a quick overview of the Public Health Reform (PHR) and started a

conversation around how it can work with the community safety agenda and

vice versa and where there might be cross fertilisation. Some key highlights from

the presentation were:

PHR has created a high level vision where everyone thrives and public

services are supported to help create this from the outset so they are not left

picking up the pieces – which is unsustainable.

PHR is about individuals, communities and organisations and its roots are from

Christie Commission in 2010, Equally Well in 2015 and the recent Scottish

Government review of public health, the results of which showed public

health to be too fragmented, needing strong leadership and voice for the

sector and that reform should ensure public health is a shared agenda.

Public Health Scotland (PHS) is now in development and hopes to enable

joined up, whole systems working and thinking. PHS is pulling together NHS

Health Scotland, ISD and Health Protection Scotland and will go live 1st April

Mark McAllister - Public Health Reform Team

2020.

Structurally, PHS will include health improvement, health protection, health

care and public health all underpinned by data and intelligence, a coherent

leadership role, innovation, research, evidence and importantly, working in

partnership.

PHS has identified six priorities – one of which is concerned with living in safe

communities. This is not solely about physical health and environment but

about how engaged people are, how empowered they are in decision

making and how safe communities are designed.

Challenge - How do we build and strengthen relationship between Community

Safety Partnerships and Public Health Scotland?

How can we build commitment to priorities and whole system approach across

Community Safety Partnerships?

How can we work to engage more effectively with Community Safety

Partnerships?

Presentation and Youtube

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Brian gave an overview of the work of (NWS) and the context they work within

today.

Key highlights of the presentation were:

Time and resource of NWS goes into physical engagement and accessibility

to communities. They attend around 80-100 community meetings a year.

Their ‘Your Watch, Your Way’ is a direct engagement programme that is not

a toolkit as one size does not fit all. This engagement process has allowed the

network to grow to over 20 thousand registered users and 1820 community

groups.

To empower the community-they need locally relevant, timeous, accurate,

trusted information. Because websites and social media were proving

ineffective, NWS have started the ‘Neighbourhood Alert’ system with 80-100

local administrators, to successfully enable this.

Question - If you want community participation and empowerment how are you

going to ‘get the right information, to the right people, at the right time?

Presentation and Youtube

Brian Connell - Neighbourhood Watch Scotland

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Tricia talked about her research and findings while developing a community

safety narrative.

Key highlights of the presentation were:

Out of the report ‘Community Safety –the emerging landscape and future

opportunities’, the development of a narrative was recommended to

map out the increasingly complex landscape.

Over six months, discussions took place with national policy leads and

local practitioners working in community safety and other related policy

areas –Youth Justice, Public Health, Regeneration and Place, Housing,

Antisocial behaviour, Violence Reduction.

The strategic context was of empowerment, resilience, inequalities and

creating the conditions for better collaborative working at both the

national and local level.

A new person centred and place-based definition was needed that

addressed the needs of communities holistically – “A safe community is a

liveable community, where people can go about their daily activities in

an environment without fear, risk, harm or injury. Community safety is

about building strong, cohesive, vibrant, participatory communities,

where homes, the roads, public spaces and the workplace are safe and

feel safe for everyone to enjoy”

Challenges to the sector are 1 - effective and meaningful community

participation requires a culture change 2 - skills and experience in

community development 3 - Community safety is ever evolving and

requires flexibility and ability to respond to emerging issues.

Challenge:

Think how best you can promote community engagement and empowerment.

Get involved in discussions around increasing the role of local communities in

local decision making.

Find out about more about how to adopt a Place Based Approach and link in

with those locally who are already doing it!

Presentation and Youtube

Tricia Spacey - Fife Council and secondee to Scottish Government/SCSN

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Session 2

Dr Aston gave a brief overview of SIPR and the role of research in community

safety policy & practice.

Key highlights of the presentation were:

SIPR aims to pull together policy, knowledge, innovation and practice to

support independent, multi-disciplinary policing research which enables

evidence informed policy and practice.

The key areas SIPR is involved in are networks, such as ‘Police-community

Relations’, ‘Evidence & Investigation’, ‘Education & Leadership’ ‘Public

Protection.’

Examples of research are: evaluation of Stop and Search Pilot, review of

Public Confidence & Police Visibility, ‘Prevention First’ Strategy in Ayrshire and

Local solutions to local problems: innovation in public participation.

What has been proven to work in linking policy and practice is: Dissemination

– communicating findings in ‘user-friendly’ ways; Social influence – using

influential others to persuade and champion use of research; Facilitation –

actively helping to use research, create conditions to support its use;

Incentives and reinforcement and Interactive approaches that strengthen

links between research, policy & practice communities.

SIPR offers practitioners: infra-structure for engagement; investment in

research and knowledge exchange; Innovation in connecting evidence and

practice; interdisciplinary community of researchers; International networks of

researchers and practitioners and pathways to impact.

Call to Action: Consider how research might be of use & how best to engage

with it? Engage with research(ers) /Universities?

Presentation and Youtube

Dr Liz Aston, Scottish Institute for Policing Research (SIPR)

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Gemma gave a brief overview of CJS and its current and future work

programmes.

Key highlights of the presentation were:

Review of 2017/18 Outcome Activity Report which reflected all activity in the

32 local authorities under the new justice arrangements. This generated a

huge amount of recommendations both nationally and locally which were

difficult to address in a year.

This year, the Improvement Team will focus on the National Strategic Needs

and Strengths Assessment (SNSA) by mapping justice process and services,

identifying needs and providing data and guidance; National Community

Justice Outcome Improvement Plans (CJOIPs) by measuring progress,

identifying and progressing the national priorities; Aligning and reviewing the

Outcomes Performance Improvement (OPI) Framework.

Within Learning and Development, the focus is on Communities of Reflective

Practice – a programme for front line staff which utilises action learning sets

for reflective activity for frontline staff, Community Justice workshops at

colleges, a learning product for unpaid work staff, training around stalking

assessment and management.

Second Chancers Campaign is ongoing, looking at individual stories of

change. Six million people have looked at the campaign. Exhibition is

available on request. Second phase of campaign looks at ‘unsung heroes of

justice’.

CJS plan for Restorative Justice is out for consultation. The vision is that

restorative justice is available across Scotland, that high quality services are

run by trained facilitators and that there is a strong public awareness and

understanding of restorative justice.

Challenge: The Presumption Against Short-Term Sentences is on its way and

communities and those in the Community safety sector must be prepared! This

could include resources, leveraging that resource, changing how systems work.

Are you prepared?

Presentation and Youtube

Gemma Fraser - Community Justice Scotland (CJS)

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Alastair presented on Community Experiences of Serious and Organised Crime

(SOC).

Key highlights of the presentation were:

Historically, the focus has been on the criminals within SOC, however, if we

look at its links to all sides of the community that might be affected, such as

older people, young people and homeless, it becomes ever more part of

community safety as a whole.

The current Scottish context is that SOC uses a partnership approach

overseen by a task force, chaired by the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and

Lord Advocate. The SOC Strategy was refreshed in 2015 and is structured

around the four D’s which are, Divert, Deter, Detect and Disrupt, using

communications, research, awareness raising and information sharing to

reduce the harm caused by SOC and build on preventative work.

Commissioned research on Community Experiences of SOC focused on the

communities affected and the impact on victims. The qualitative research

findings lay broadly around housing, leisure, recreation and youth work, drug

use, vulnerability and victimisation, aspirations, opportunities and narratives,

local policing and trust and community resilience.

A conference was held after the research was published and as a result of

ideas generated, the Community Empowerment Project has been

developed which puts four Communities at the centre of the decision-

making process having them decide their own priorities for action.

Finally, SOC are working with policy-makers, service providers, community

members and others to further understand the harms caused by organised

crime in communities; address some of those harms and build community

resilience against organised crime.

Call to Action: What can Community Safety Partnerships do to reduce the harm

caused by organised crime and build community resilience? What can YOU do?

Presentation and Youtube

Alastair Crerar - Head of Organised Crime Policy, Scottish Government

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ACO Haggart gave an update on the BSC Executive Group, the SFRS

Transformation Strategy and Draft Strategic Plan.

Key highlights of the presentation were:

Current focus of the BSC Executive group is Unintentional Harm (UH). 7th June

will see a second event on UH where working in collaboration to prevent UH

will be explored as well as guest speakers, feedback on progress, looking at

future priorities and the launch of the UH online Hub.

SFRS are involved in various areas of work that are connected to community

safety at both the local and national level. Namely, community safety

engagement, such as home safety visits, fire investigation, area

liaison/performance such as working with partners to deliver outcomes,

specialist fire engineers and fire safety enforcement, especially post Grenfell.

SFRS has an ambitious Transformation Strategy that was consulted on last

year. The reason being that the landscape has changed significantly over

the years with more focus now on the threat of terrorism, health and social

care, flooding and wildfires. Working in partnership to have a wider

prevention reach.

The SFRS Strategic Plan is out for consultation until the 17th July. It has four

overarching themes; Prevention, Response, our People and Public Value from

which four outcomes were developed. The longer-term outcomes are supported

by a broad range of objectives from which key actions can be identified to drive

forward the strategy.

Call to Action:

What do CSP practitioners see as the future role of BSC Executive Group?

Think about how your local teams can work with SFRF on broadening prevention

work.

Presentation and Youtube

Ross Haggart - ACO Director of Prevention and Protection, Scottish Fire and

Rescue Service

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Panel Discussion

This section of this report provides a summary of the questions asked and answers

given. Delegates could ask questions verbally or via an app called Slido.

Supt Tim Ross presented on safer communities and partnerships; national and

local.

Key highlights of the presentation were:

Supt Ross gave an overview of the policy landscape focussing on the Christie

Commission (2011) and the Police and Fire Reform Act (2012).

Police Scotland’s new performance framework 19-20 is outcome based. The

five strategic outcomes are public safety and wellbeing, needs of local

communities, confidence in policing, positive working environment and a

sustainable and adaptable service.

Supt Ross looked at some of the current challenges facing Police Scotland

such as mental health, missing people and drug and alcohol misuse.

CSPs take many forms across the country and therefore CPPs might be seen

as the sovereign partnership framework locally which police and other

partners must find ways to effectively ‘plug in’ to. Local Police Plans could be

part of the LOIPs – we need to find ways to streamline planning.

Police Scotland’s new Executive Portfolio “Partnership, Prevention and

Community Wellbeing” develops a collaborative approach, with initial focus

on mental health and distress, children and young people, alcohol, drugs

and other substance related harm and developing public health principles

for policing. The main principle for change being the right service provider(s),

the right support, at the right time.

Challenge/Prompt – What do you expect of Police Scotland to help you deliver

community safety? How do we streamline and declutter the planning

landscape?

Presentation and Youtube

Supt Tim Ross - Police Scotland's Safer Communities and Partnerships and

Collaboration Team

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The broader discussion included reflections on how

partnerships could engage with academic research

evidence (amongst other data) and how partnerships

could use research evidence to stimulate debate on

particular topics.

Other discussion focused on the ask from partnerships

that citizens and communities participate and take

ownership in some aspects of community safety, but

enquired about the role that delegates could play in

promoting this participation through being more open

about the partnership decision making processes.

We spent some time specifically talking about PASS

(Presumption Against Short-term Sentences) and the

role that partnerships had to play in ensuring the success

of this policy change – we want this to be a success but

this will require additional capacity within other parts of

the justice system to cope with fewer imprisonments.

Some of our discussion also touched upon Place plans,

locality profiles and whether there was sufficient

attention given to understanding the needs of different

cohorts, not just geographical communities. We

specifically discussed those in contact with the criminal

justice system but could also include demographic

groups such as women, children, older people or other

non-geographical communities such as those with

housing or employment needs, low income areas etc.

SFRS and Police Scotland were open to some

suggestions about how they could be ‘better’ partners

within CSPs, and Police Scotland were content for

partners to be more demanding of them!

Within the same discussion and linking to the earlier

conversation on Place plans, Locality plans, LOIPs and

CJOIPs, Local Fire plans, Local Police Plans and

Community Safety Strategies we also spent some time

reflecting on the plethora of plans and many people

were supportive of simplifying and decluttering this

landscape. As Lorraine Gillies said “No community

member has ever asked me for a strategy or a plan.”

We also spent some time thinking about the future of

the Building Safer Communities programme.

Following on from the SOC input, we also discussed

what CSPs could do to build resilience to protect

against SOC harm and how to reduce the harm it

causes.

How do we collectively overcome GDPR constraints in relation to sharing data across agencies to fully understand public health issues? Are we considering inclusion of those affected by the justice system as a vulnerable group or locality plan in addition to a separate Community Justice plan? 40% people going through police custody state they have a mental health issue. How do we get this information into police reports and allow the right decisions to be made about prosecution? Where do health inequalities sit within public health? As a country are we currently in a position to offer young people meaningful opportunity to allow them to avoid SOC? We need to recognise that for some, aspects of SOC bring benefits to communities – can we fill that gap?

QUESTIONS

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It was a well-attended event with 28 people coming along from a range of national

partners well as a good representation from local authorities and their elected

members. We had some great questions, really interesting conversations and positive

feedback from participants.

We used an online survey using

Survey Monkey as a way of

collecting feedback from

participants.

Survey results:

8/13 people gave the speaker/input five stars, 5 gave four stars.

9 people rated the conversation as five stars; 3 people rated the conversations

as three stars and 1 at three stars.

5 people gave the venue and catering four stars, 8 gave five stars.

4/13 people gave the event overall four stars. 9 people gave it five stars.

Participants very much felt they

were helped to consider emerging

themes; offered the opportunity to

influence developments with

community safety partners across

the sector and helped you to be

able to 'make the case' for

community safety locally.

85% said they would definitely

attend another SCSN learning event.

They did feel there were not enough

opportunities to network, which we will take on board.

We had a Twitter # for the day with 58 tweets about the session reaching 30,000

accounts.

Attendance and Feedback

“Thought the event was well organised and extremely interesting – keen to learn from the presentations and embed at a local level”

Considering the number of similarly related events I go to, SCSN always manage to keep their events current, very informative, engaging and fun.

“I found the consistency in emphasis on looking at links to health and wellbeing, place, community planning really heartening to hear!”

“Considered other areas of work that I now understand fit into my current working practices”

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Final Word

The Chairs and Leads event drew together many partners to think about

community safety in multiple settings, the connections between different areas

of community planning and community safety and the importance of

community safety in creating wellbeing.

We hope that the inputs and conversations have renewed interest in safer

communities and demonstrated the importance of this area, helped partners

to make the case for community safety and sparked some new ideas for future

developments!

We’d like to give our thanks to all speakers, the delegates on the day and ask

you all to give some thought to the challenges and prompts and perhaps we’ll

revisit them next year at a future event.