Strategic Assessment Summary

Introduction

As a result of the Crime and Disorder Act review (2007), each partnership is required to produce a yearly Strategic Assessment, which will be reviewed every six months. The assessment will be used to identify issues affecting public safety in the Borough and will ultimately act as the basis for decision making and partnership co-ordination for the next year.

The Act also provides that all partnerships shall have a strategy group. The role of the strategy group is to prepare the Strategic Assessment and a partnership plan. The Strategic Assessment is an analysis of the levels and patterns of crime and disorder and substance misuse in the area and sets the priorities the partnership should adopt to address those matters. The partnership plan will set out a strategy for meeting those priorities and how that strategy should be implemented by the partnership. This Strategic Assessment will form the basis for the Safer Havant Partnership Plan 2008/11.

There is also a requirement that a County-wide strategic group produce a community safety agreement for the county based on the strategic assessments of each area in that County. In two-tier areas funding for partnerships is to be accessed through Local Area Agreements which are negotiated at a County level by Local Strategic Partnerships. This assessment is also intended to influence those funding negotiations.

Aim - To inform the effective deployment of Partnership resources against local Community Safety priorities.

The aim of this strategic assessment is to provide Havant Borough Council (HBC) with an assessment of current, emerging and long-term issues affecting the Borough. These will be considered in conjunction with Government objectives. It will attempt to predict future risks and levels of crime in order to provide leverage for the Borough to achieve the outcomes identified within the Local Area Agreement (LAA).

This assessment will enable the Local Strategic Partnership through the Safer Havant Partnership, to develop control strategies, policies and determine resource allocation through the 2008-2011 community safety plan.

The assessment has been informed by extensive community and partner engagement and the analysis of a wide range of local and county wide data sets including:

Public perception surveys
Demand on services as identified through single non emergency number (101) calls
Recorded crime
Havant Fire and Rescue Service
Hampshire Primary Care Trust
National Office of Statistics

In preparing this assessment Safer Havant Partnership secured the assistance of the Home Office Partnership Support Team to review current performance against the Hallmarks of Effective Partnership working.

The Hallmarks identified are:

empowered and effective leadership
visible and constructive accountability
community engagement
effective and responsive delivery structures
intelligence led business processes
appropriate skills and knowledge

The findings and recommendations of the Partnership Support Team are included throughout this document.

Contextual landscape

Havant Borough is located on the South coast of Hampshire between the City of Portsmouth on the one side and the countryside of West Sussex on the other. Covering 55 square Kilometres in total Havant has a population of some 115,000 people.

The Borough is made up of a wide conurbation of towns and neighbourhoods including Havant, Waterlooville, Cowplain, Purbrook, Leigh Park, Bedhampton, Emsworth and Hayling Island. Havant has a split personality all of its own in that it features some of the most affluent areas in the County intermingled with some of the most deprived.

Havant is one of four district Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships within the Hampshire Police Central Operational Command Unit. ( OCU )
Havant is the highest contributor to overall crime across the OCU .
Havant is the third highest area for non accidental fires in the county.
There are severe pockets of deprivation in the borough and an unhelpful and often unfair representation of the Leigh Park estate.
Portsmouth City Council is the landlord for over 5,000 houses in Havant and still owns large amounts of land across the borough.
Havant has some of the same social/economic issues as Portsmouth but does not attract the level of funding to support tackling these issues.

This assessment has identified strategic organisational challenges and key community priorities to be addressed to ensure the effective delivery of partnership services. It has also identified a number of geographical areas of demand on services and recommends that these challenges and priorities should form the basis of our Community Safety Plan for the next 12 months.

The assessment has also identified a number of issues that fall within the broader Hampshire County Council Community Safety remit and it is recommended that these are progressed through the Local Area Agreement negotiations.

Each emerging theme will be addressed in turn in the main body of this report.

Recommended local priorities identified for consideration for the Havant District community safety plan 2008/2011

Anti-Social Behaviour
Criminal Damage including arson
Violent Crime (With particular reference to assaults, domestic violence and hate crime)

There are also five geographical areas identified that represent a high level of demand on Partnership resources and they in turn will also be featured in this report.

Priority locations within Havant District identified by the assessment

Leigh Park Barncroft, Battins, Bondfield and Warren Park Wards

Stakes Ward Hart Plain Ward

Wecock

Havant Town Centre St Faiths Ward

Hayling Island Beachlands (An upcoming area of concern which has seen an increase in ASB during the past year)

Countywide issues

There are a number of issues that impact on services that are delivered on a County wide basis which it is recommended should form the basis of the Havant District Council’s Local Area Agreement bid namely:

Partnership working - enabling delivery: strengthening capacity and capability.
Reduce the harm caused by alcohol and drugs.
Reducing re-offending (prolific and priority offenders)
Reducing the numbers of young people as victims and offenders.
CCTV capacity.

Having identified the priority areas the next stage is to conduct further analysis into the issues raised in order to develop an improvement plan in the form of the 2008/09 Community Safety Plan. In addition, to ensure the effective delivery of this plan, this assessment recommends that Havant Borough Council continues to work with the Home Office Partnership Support Team

Home Office Partnership Support Team recommendations

To strengthen and broaden the strategic and executive leadership of the partnership
To position intelligence led business processes into the operational structures of the partnership processes and decision making
To rebalance the partnership structures to improve the responsiveness of the Partnership to overall programme management, performance management, Safer Neighbourhoods, interface with Partnership stakeholders and long term sustainability of priorities.
To prepare for the overview and scrutiny regulations under the Police and Justice Act

The following members of Havant Borough Council’s Community Safety Team had direct input into the preparation and writing of this strategic assessment:

Claire Hughes Chair of the Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnership
Tim Pointer Community Safety Team Leader
Ryan Gulliver Community Safety Intelligence Researcher and Analyst – Havant Borough Council & Winchester City Council
Samantha Charlton Anti-Social Behaviour Coordinator
Francine Huin-Wah Support Officer

The team have also received invaluable assistance from

Kim Bentley HBC research and information officer
Simon Devonshire HBC Business transformation officer

If this information is difficult to read we can provide it in another format, for example in braille, large print, on audio tape or in another language. To request any of these formats please contact customer.services@havant.gov.uk