Shropshire Partnership Crime and Disorder Strategic Assessment 2011 1. Introduction 1.1 the Aim of This Docum Ent Is to Provid
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Shropshire Partnership Crime and Disorder Strategic Assessment 2011 1. Introduction 1.1 The aim of this docum ent is to provide a view of crim e, disorder and substance misuse that has an impact on the well being of the people in the administrative area of Shropshire Council. This view when considered alongside national and local government priorities will identify objectives, including performance gaps and form a control strategy to reduce crim e, disorder and substance misuse in the a dministrative area of Shropshire Council. 1.2 The Unitary Authority of Shropshire is policed by 1 West Mercia Constabulary Basic Command Unit, has a shared Fire and Rescue servic e and 1 Community Safety Partnership (CSP). Data Sources 1.3 Data used for this assessm ent is depe rsonalised and has been obtained under the Crime and Disorder (Prescribed Inform ation) Regulations (2007), complies with the requirements of the Dat a Protection Act, the Home Office: Infor mation sharing for community safety: g uidance an d practi ce advice, L ocal Inform ation Sharing Agreements and other guidelines. 1.4 The sources of data are Crime (including type and property stol en where applicab le) – W est Mercia Police Crime recording system. Victim / Offenders depersonalised data from W est Mercia Police crim e recording system. Anti social behaviour from West Mercia Police command and control system West Mercia Police Crime & Community Safety Survey Statistical d ata on crim e sourced fr om iQuanta (Hom e Of fice Polic ing Performance Analysis). Fire data sourced from Shropshire Fire and Rescue Serv ice comm and and control system and fire event recording system West Mercia Probation Service – depers onalised data on offenders subject to probation supervision. Sensitivity of Report 1.5 This Strategic Assessm ent forms the basis for annual community safety agreem ents between CSP partners and the CSP Partner ship Plan, which will im plement priorities identified in the s trategic ass essment, se ts o ut the community stra tegy f or th e reduction of crime and disorder and for combating substance misuse. Version 0.1 Page 1 of 39 pages Shropshire Partnership Crime and Disorder Strategic Assessment 2011 1.6 This report is a worki ng actionable docum ent and by nature is classified as ‘RESTRICTED’ and should not be circulated outside the Safer Shropshire Partnership without the express permission of the chairman of the PMCG. Report Constraints 1.7 This report represents the latest inform ation available at the tim e of writing in the evolving environm ent of comm unity safety partnership working, current relevant legislation and government guidance. 1.8 Previously certain central governm ent initiatives, the public se rvice agreements and the national indicator sets, have influenced decisions and target settin g. There are indications that certain nati onal in dicator se ts in the com munity saf ety aren a will continue and cognisance of this will be recognised. 1.9 The indicators that appear to continue are1 Serious Violent Crime Rate Serious Acquisitive Crime Rate Assault less serious injury ASB - dealing with local concerns ASB - understanding local concerns Changes to Community Safety Delivery 1.10 Following the April 2009 changes for local government in Shropshire a new structure for Community Safety was put in place bas ed on 3 Area Partnerships. The structure was further enhanced by the introduction of Bronze Tasking to give a more localised operational, problem solving structure and focus. 1.11 However, there is an indication that Shr opshire Council will move to a m arket town focus in th e near f uture, which m ay af fect the way d ata are p resented to the partnership. Description of Shropshire2 1.12 Shropshire is a diverse, large, predominantly rural, inland county, situated in the West Midlands. With a population of just 290,900 a nd at only 0.91 persons per hectare, the County is one of the most sparsely populate d. Shropshire sits on the far western edge of the West Midlands region and borders Wales and the North West region. 1.13 The County has several s mall market towns; only four of these have a population of over 10,000 (Census 2001). Shrewsbury is the County town and has the status of sub- regional foci in the adopted Regional Sp atial Strategy (RS S) and is developing a Growth Point Strategy. In the emerging RSS Shrewsbury is defined as a ‘settlement of significant development’. The town is home to around a quarter of the population and 1 Source: http://www.lgcplus.com/5022569.article 2 Source: Shropshire 2008 LAA Evidence Base Version December 2008 Version 0.1 Page 2 of 39 pages Shropshire Partnership Crime and Disorder Strategic Assessment 2011 is a key employment, shopping and cultural centre for Shropshire and mid-Wales, and a popular destination for tourists and visitors. Population distribution and density 1.14 Shrewsbury is the largest settlem ent in Shropshire with a population of 67,126 i n 2001, representing 24% of the total population at that tim e. The other m ain market towns are much s maller: Oswestry w ith 16,660, Bridgnorth with 11,891, Market Drayton with 10,407, Ludlow with 9,250 and Whitchurch with 8,067. The population of these market towns represents 20% of the total for Shropshire. 1.15 The 2001 Census shows that only 6% of the County’s land area is urban but is occupied by 64% of the County’s p opulation. The remaining 102,850 people (36%) live in rural areas distributed widely and sparsely across a large geographical are a with m any sm all settlem ents. Any clusters of population outside the m ain m arket towns are few and also very sm all. This population distribution together with a low population density, m akes delivering servic es effectively and efficiently m ore difficult. Index of Multiple Deprivation 2007 – overall index 1.16 Overall Shropshire County is a relativel y undeprived area and ranked as being the 106th most deprived county of 149 county and unitary authorities. In England there are 32,482 Lower Layer Super Output Areas (LLSOAs) of these four LLSOAs i n Shropshire fall within the m ost deprived 5 th of LLSOAs in England. These areas are located with in the areas of Harlescott, Meole Brace and Monkm oor in Shrewsbury and Castle in Oswestry. These LLSOAs make up 2% of the Shropshire population. In contrast, 13% of Shropshire’s po pulation f all with in th e lea st d eprived f ifth of LLSOAs in England. 1.17 Although the Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) is an important overall measure of deprivation, poverty and social exclusion it must be stated however, that not all deprived people live in deprived areas and not everyone who is living in the deprived area is deprived. Conversely it is not a m easure of affluence, a lack of deprivation does not necessarily equate to affluence th erefore those areas that are ranked high are not necessarily affluent, just less deprived. Version 0.1 Page 3 of 39 pages Shropshire Partnership Crime and Disorder Strategic Assessment 2011 2. Crime and Disorder overview and performance Since the last strategic assessment a number of initiatives have been introduced 2.1 Bronze Tasking / Problem Localities These are more focused operational groups th an the Area Partnership structure that they replace. The concentration is on local problem solving and is geographically loosely based on the pre unitary distr ict stru cture. Sup porting this are loca lised performance and crim e / asb concentration reports iden tifying changes to priority crime density, together with ‘Problem Localities’ iden tified by th e Perf ormance Management and Commissioning Group. Problem localities are d efined as th ose loca tions (streets or prem ises) that have a higher occurrence of crime and disorder events over a 6 m onth period. The localities should be persistent, of concern, unlikel y to go away on its own and suitable for partnership intervention. Of particular note are the issues with Anti So cial Behaviour around Shrewsbury. The inst allation of a CCTV cam era and police an d partnership diversionary ac tivities r esulted in a substan tial reduc tion in repor ted events. Th e location went f rom being t op o f the Proble m Locality list to hard ly appearing at all. 2.2 Anti Social Behaviour: In order to be able to respond to the whole range of an ti-social behaviour types it i s proposed th at a m ulti-disciplinary team woul d be created in Shropshire and draw officers from the Police; Local A uthority; and Registered Provi ders (housing) to complete interrelated tasks. The team/unit would be able to respond to reports of anti- social behaviour m ade to the single repor ting number when the issue being reported spans service area/organisational boundaries and no single agency response can be identified. The team/unit could also case m anage particularly complex cases requiring a m ulti- agency resp onse, callin g in partner agencies where necessary and if appropriate referring cases to or picking up cases from case conferen ces following bronze-level tasking. In addition the team /unit could co-o rdinate information for perpetrators of anti-social behaviour and take a lead on a pplying for anti-social behaviour tools and powers, when there is no single agency to do so. The advantages of this approach include: Sh ropshire meeting the requirement to have a dedicated team available to report anti-social behaviou r to.