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Police and Crime Commissioners Generation 2.0 How You Can Work with the Voluntary Sector to Cut Crime How You Can Work with the Voluntary Sector to Cut Crime

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Police and Crime Commissioners Generation 2.0 How You Can Work with the Voluntary Sector to Cut Crime How You Can Work with the Voluntary Sector to Cut Crime Police and Crime Commissioners Generation 2.0 How you can work with the voluntary sector to cut crime How you can work with the voluntary sector to cut crime About Clinks About Revolving Doors Agency Clinks is the national umbrella body for voluntary Revolving Doors Agency is a charity working to change sector organisations that work with offenders systems and improve services for people who face 2016-2020 and their families. We have over 600 member multiple and complex needs and come into repeated organisations, of all sizes, delivering services in contact with the police and Criminal Justice System. local communities to transform offenders’ lives and promote desistance from crime. Our vision Through their First Generation Project with the is of a vibrant and independent sector working Transition to Adulthood Alliance, Revolving Doors Your priorities with informed and engaged communities to Agency have worked with PCCs across the country enable the rehabilitation of offenders. – raising awareness of the particular problems faced by young adults (18-25) and ‘revolving door’ Our sector has an important contribution to offenders; sharing evidence of effective policy make to community safety. Voluntary sector solutions; and highlighting examples of promising organisations have been working in their local practice among PCCs through a series of briefings for cutting communities for many years, providing expert and publications. For further information, see interventions that work to cut crime. They are a key www.revolving-doors.org.uk/policy--research/ partner for PCCs in the development and delivery policy-projects/first-generation-project of local services, as well as a critical friend when decisions that affect their service users are made. We believe people who have personal experience crime and of multiple and complex problems are experts Clinks has worked with the Home Office since through experience. Our national and regional the PCC role was first created, to help facilitate Service User Forums bring together people who this important relationship. This included through have personal experience of multiple and complex the Safer Future Communities project, which problems, including poor mental health, drug and supported local networks of voluntary organisations alcohol problems and contact with the Criminal improving to engage with the new structures as they first Justice System. They work to influence policy took shape. In some areas these local networks and improve services locally and nationally. continue to operate and work alongside PCCs. The T2A Alliance The T2A Alliance is a broad coalition of organisations, which evidences and promotes the need for community a distinct and radically different approach to young adults (18-24 year olds) in the transition to adulthood throughout the criminal justice process. Convened by the Barrow Cadbury Trust, its safety membership of 13 organisations includes leading criminal justice, health and youth organisations: Addaction, BTEG, Catch 22, Centre for Crime and In the run up to the 2016 Police There are several ways in which PCCs and local Justice Studies (CCJS), Clinks, Criminal Justice and Crime Commissioner (PCC) structures that govern policing and community Alliance (CJA), Howard League for Penal Reform, Nacro, safety can work better with the voluntary elections, in the context of further the Prince’s Trust, Prison Reform Trust, Revolving Doors sector, to the benefit of communities. Agency, the Young Foundation and Young Minds. potential local devolution of the justice system in England and This briefing outlines the key areas and activities national devolution in Wales, Clinks which we believe PCC candidates should prioritise in their election manifesto and police and Revolving Doors Agency believe and crime plan once elected. Throughout the that working with the voluntary document we provide examples of how some sector is key to cutting crime. current PCCs have responded to these issues. How you can work with the voluntary sector to cut crime How you can work with the voluntary sector to cut crime Take the lead in Exemplify best engaging the practice in voluntary sector commissioning There have been many changes in community In a time of austerity PCCs joining up safety and criminal justice over the last few years, West Yorkshire PCC with local partners and harnessing the Avon and Somerset PCC beginning with the creation of PCCs themselves. value of the voluntary sector can improve Voluntary sector commissioning practice and outcomes. Commissioning and The Transforming Rehabilitation changes to probation advisor model grants strategy have introduced new providers, as well as new The knowledge and expertise the voluntary sector funding arrangement which include an element of In West Yorkshire, PCC Mark Burns-Williamson holds is invaluable to commissioners and should Avon & Somerset’s PCC has committed to payment by results (PbR). Meanwhile, local authorities initially invested £5,000 in the Safer Future be utilised in not just the delivery of services working with a wide range of partners and retain responsibility for related activity such as Communities Network led by Voluntary Action but the whole commissioning cycle; it can help other agencies to support her in delivering her Troubled Families, and they and local health bodies Leeds (VAL). With this funding, VAL led the PCCs and other commissioners to assess needs, priorities. The Avon and Somerset Office of – such as clinical commissioning groups and local development of a Third Sector Advisory Group identify priorities, design and deliver services, the PCC’s (OPCC) approach to commissioning authority public health teams – also have obligations that reflected a wide range of sector interests measure outcomes and review impact. services and community outcomes is set out to meet offenders’ health and social care needs. – including from different specialisms and in its 2015 Commissioning and Grants Strategy. a geographical spread across the area. The However voluntary sector organisations, particularly It emphasises commissioning should be needs Voluntary sector organisations can help all these Advisory Group reports to the PCC’s Annual small and local ones, can often be disadvantaged and evidence led and that partnership working bodies achieve their aims but face major challenges Third Sector Conference. The sector was also in tendering and procurement processes. and co-commissioning are fundamental. The in engaging at all these different levels. PCCs allocated a place on the PCCs Partnership OPCC values the expertise of the market and have the power and influence to bring partners Executive Group. Following this, at the end PCCs should take the lead locally in joining up will develop services through co-production. together, but also to build the capacity of the of January 2014, a VAL staff member went with other commissioners and setting an example The Strategy includes a strong emphasis local voluntary sector to engage with them all. on secondment for one year to the Office by involving the voluntary sector in all aspects of on outcomes and impact and states the of the PCC as its Third Sector Adviser. This commissioning. This might include, for example, OPCC’s commitment to the standards in the PCCs should take the lead on developing structures has since become a mainstream post. ensuring fair and transparent processes for Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012. to facilitate strategic engagement between statutory From this a model of partnership working procurement – including consideration of contract The OPCC has a dedicated voluntary sector agencies and the local voluntary sector. Doing this between the PCC and the voluntary sector size, whether a contract or a grant would be the officer who acts as a point of contact for can help PCCs fulfil their community safety and has emerged which has been beneficial to most appropriate commissioning model, and organisations to get in touch with. The OPCC has criminal justice duties to work with other statutory both. The sector has taken a leading role consideration of social value in funding decisions. actively engaged the local VCSE with regard to bodies, as well as their duty to engage with victims in the development of services for victims commissioning, putting on numerous workshops and members of the public. This could be through and offenders. It has also contributed to the and presentations to outline their commissioning supporting a local organisation to coordinate a approach taken to commissioning, and especially aims and intentions. The OPCC team wanted to voluntary sector network, by chairing a forum to equality impact assessments. An annual grants support the sector as much as possible within of statutory, private and voluntary organisations programme was launched (now worth more than the perimeters of commissioning, stimulating providing criminal justice and community safety £1m in total) from which hundreds of community the market so that even small organisations services or even by seconding a member of staff groups have benefited. The role of the sector were included and informed. This work was from the voluntary sector into the PCC’s office to act is prominent in the police and crime plan. The made possible through strong links with the as a single point of contact with the voluntary sector. work of the PCC and VAL was recognised in local Council for Voluntary Service and their the Compact Awards in November 2014. existing relationship with the voluntary sector. How you can work with the voluntary sector to cut crime How you can work with the voluntary sector to cut crime Cutting crime Recognise the means reducing importance reoffending of race Supporting offenders to desist from crime is not Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) just a job for prisons and probation. PCCs also Norfolk PCC people are over represented at every stage Nottinghamshire PCC have a clear interest in reducing reoffending of the Criminal Justice System, from stop as part of their overall mission to cut crime. Co-ordinating a and search to the prison population. BAME Independent county-wide approach Advisory Group Desistance is not a one-off event.
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