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Lincolnshire Police

ASB CALL HANDLING TRIALS REPORT

1 ASB CALL HANDLING TRIALS REPORT

Prepared by C/I Mark Housley BA (Hons) DipM DMS MBA



Contents Executive Summary 1. Introduction

Demographic Profile HMIC Inspection

2. ASB Internal Review

Risk Assessment and Victim Management Case Management ASB Strategy, Policy and Procedure Community Engagement Information Sharing

3. The Reason for Change

Why Lincolnshire Volunteered for the Trial The Force Re-structure

4. The Force – ASB Background

5. The Objective of the ASB Trial (ASB Challenge Project)

Objective Method

Strategy, Policy & Procedure Funding and Resource Partnership and Risk Assessment Training Plan Definitions; Repeat & Vulnerable Data Sharing Case Management Quality Management Risk Management Across ‘Initiative’ Linkage Performance & Evaluation

6. Impacts, Outcomes, and Performance

Current Picture Outcomes Outputs & Impacts

Strategy, Policy and Procedure Analytical Reporting Internal Impact External Impact Benchmark Report

7. Challenges and Difficulties 8. What we would do differently 9. The Future 10. Learning Consolidated 11. References



Executive Summary In January 2011 Lincolnshire Police Force, with 7 other forces embarked on the Home Office Call Handling Trials. The objective to trial a new approach based on five key principles, which will be tailored to each area:

creating an effective call handling system where each individual has a log of complaints created from the very first call

introducing risk assessment tools to quickly identify the most vulnerable victims installing off-the-shelf IT systems to share information on cases between agencies, removing the

need for meetings agreeing a protocol across all local agencies setting out how they will manage cases engaging with the community to clearly set out the issues which are causing the most harm to

individuals and neighbourhoods, and setting out how the police, other local agencies and the public can work together to address them.

Having launched the trial, recognising and embracing opportunities identified by HMIC in spring 2010, following their Inspections of all UK forces in respect of Anti-social behaviour management; the force conducted an internal review.

The review found the following:-

Call Handling and Risk Assessing – Whilst the force performed well in risk assessing Domestic Abuse; Missing Persons and other categories of crime, the force performed less well in respect of ASB. The review recognised that in many cases the force failed to register and capture the vulnerability of victims, whether they were repeat victims or callers and whether their calls were linked to ‘hot spot’ locations.

Further work identified a lack of knowledge and understanding in respect of what makes a person vulnerable, this was found to be the case across the force including Neighbourhood Policing Teams. There was no clear definition of a repeat victim in respect of ASB, and many call takers were not aware that many callers were repeat victims before ever contacting police.

Case Management – Whilst the force has an excellent Neighbourhood Policing Structure, staffed with Police Officers and PCSOs that clearly understand their communities, ASB and problem solving, reflected in the positive ASB survey results (App 1) that identified 78% of victims are pleased with the service they received. However, there was not a corporate approach or system to the management of ASB. The force has clear policy in respect of crime management and utilise NICHE, ASB has been managed locally using a myriad of systems.

Partnership working and Information Sharing – Lincolnshire Police have always enjoyed excellent partnership working across public services. However, whilst some organisations had in place strategy, policy and procedure in respect of ASB others didn’t. Further review identified that Police and partners were working towards different definitions of ASB and repeat and there lacked any clarity in respect of what a vulnerable victim might look like.

There was a recognition that Police identified and managed victims dependent on the crime or solvability factors as opposed to need and harm and partners approach conflicted with this.

Information sharing did not exist in some parts with partners focussed on protecting their data from each other, using legislation in place to encourage sharing. The agreements in place were mixed and lacked any ‘corporate’ or uniform approach across the county. This has led to practitioners having to work outside of organisational guidance to ‘get the job done’ thus exposing themselves and their organisation to increase risk. Different partners had different approaches, the police employing Policing panels across the county and engaging partners through a mix of JIMs, JAGs, Theme Groups, and ASBAGS, this does not take account of other none police groups such as CAFF, TAC, FWT and others. Clearly opportunity exists for considerable streamlining to ensure a clear understanding and capture the outcomes from partner activity.



Engaging Communities – The force and many partners have engagement strategies in place, in only two districts were these strategies married to enable partners to work together. All partners conducted surveys that included the same questions, yet surveys were neither combined or information shared.

Results of Trial The trial has been the catalyst for the Force and Partners to move forward in respect of managing ASB, but also improving our partnership working, recognising economies of scale, sharing resource, skills and ability and effectively sharing information to ensure we are efficient, effective and productive in achieving outcomes that have long term impact of our communities and reduce the demand on our finite resources. Risk Assessment – The force now risk assesses 75% of ASB Callers, with a target of 100%. The force now has a clearer picture of repeat and vulnerable victims and deploys resources more effectively. Partners have adopted the same risk assessment and are achieving 100% of callers being properly risk assessed. We now produce a weekly and monthly ASB report for both police and partners. Identifying repeat and vulnerable victims, identifying ‘hotspots’ and emerging issues. The force has identified a ‘strategic’ lead for ASB and identified a dedicated analyst to enable the force to recognise and respond more effectively to ASB, this has been reflected in the NIM process which identifies ASB as the biggest risk the force faces at this time. Case Management – The force and 14 partners have adopted the ‘Sentinel’ case management system. All ASB cases from partners are managed on ‘Sentinel’ and all Police repeat; vulnerable, high risk, hot spot locations, or complex & protracted cases are managed on Sentinel. The force is planning to interface NSPIS command and control with Sentinel before December, but faces a number of security challenges in respect of protecting, managing and transmitting data. Information Sharing, Strategy, Policy, and Procedure – The county now has in place comprehensive Information Sharing Agreements that encourage the sharing of information, we have in place (waiting ratification across District & County councils) a county Strategy, Policy and Procedure, to which all partners have signed up to in principal. Key Learning Risk Management – This project identified considerable risk for officers, the force, partners and community. The project failed to place these issues on risk registers around the county and establish its own risk register. It should be recognised that after the initial project plan the next document should ALWAYS be the risk register, thus enabling the project to have sight of the risk and work towards mitigating the risk. Quality Management and Corporate Audit – how do you introduce a policy, procedure, strategy, and IT based case management systems across 16 partners, 400 users managing approximately 35,000+ calls to service per year and manages the quality & risk? A key learning during this project has been Quality Audit from strategic to operational, how do we gain agreement, which does it, what are the consequences of failure and what are the controls we test again. The Lincolnshire County Council Internal Audit team came to our rescue and work is in progress that has begun to put in place what we be a ‘shining’ national example of internal audit; peer review; and partnership working. See App 6 Draft Audit Plan. Data Sharing – Data Protection, Crime and Disorder Act and Human Rights continue to challenge public services in delivering a service. It seems that we lose sight of our role and what we need to do, living in fear of legislation. This culture has not been helped by a number of high profile data management cases which has led to some considerable fines to public bodies. The culture that it is safer not to share, in that the consequence for non sharing and getting it wrong is far less than for sharing and getting wrong has to be challenged. This project has used legislation appropriately, capturing the thrust of reports such as ‘Bichard’ and sharing information for the benefit of our communities. The failure to do this leads to practitioners sharing information without support, protection or any form of audit trail, just to get the job done.



Resource – This project, which has demanded a change in culture; the introduction of new systems and way of thinking, delivering new strategy, policy, procedure and has led to the need to train 100’s of people, requires properly resourcing. The project has no dedicated staff, the system alone (400 users, 35,000 cases) should have a dedicated administrator, and as the environment changes, i.e. new legislation, the introduction of the PCC etc we need to ensure ASB has a partnership co-ordinator. Communications Strategy – Whilst the project identified communication as a key ingredient to success and identified project leads, this was not driven and the communications strategy or implementation fell to the steering group chair, which did not have the capacity. Select the right people delegate and hold accountable.



1. Introduction In January 2011 the Home Office launched the ASB Call Handling trial as a consequence of concerns expressed by HMIC as a result of inspections conducted during 2010 (as below). The ‘Trial’ identified 8 volunteer forces who had agreed to trial a new approach based on five key principles, which will be tailored to each area:

creating an effective call handling system where each individual has a log of complaints created from the very first call

introducing risk assessment tools to quickly identify the most vulnerable victims installing off-the-shelf IT systems to share information on cases between agencies, removing the

need for meetings agreeing a protocol across all local agencies setting out how they will manage cases engaging with the community to clearly set out the issues which are causing the most harm to

individuals and neighbourhoods, and setting out how the police, other local agencies and the public can work together to address them.

Demographic profile of force area

Lincolnshire is a mainly rural county bordering the North Sea and the Wash. The force encompasses small villages, market towns and one city. The county has a population of 665,270 and there are 282,183 households. There are population clusters in the south of the county, and the largest urban centre is the city of Lincoln. The rural and sometimes isolated eastern coastal areas have a high influx of tourists in the summer (Skegness and Mablethorpe). Geographically, Lincolnshire is twice the size of any other county in the East Midlands region.

Community cohesion is a headline challenge for the police and all public services in Lincolnshire, as is reflected in the local area agreement. This is not limited to issues created by the increasingly diverse ethnic mix (which has the potential for further growth through the EU accession states); it also includes the challenges of a year-on-year influx of middle-aged families with teenage children, as well as pre- and post-retirement adults.

Lincolnshire has an ageing population. For example, nearly 30% of the population of East Lindsey (East Coast) is aged 60 or over. Despite this, Lincolnshire has been identified as one of the fastest growing communities within the East Midlands region. The East Midlands Development Agency is seeking to encourage investment and improved infrastructure within the county. This will help to raise skills levels, attract higher-skilled industries to the county and keep younger people in the area, while improving employment prospects generally.

Average wages across the East Midlands are 6.7% lower than the national average, and employment rates in some areas of the county are more than 5% below the national average. In the 2000 index of multiple deprivation, 25 Lincolnshire wards were in the top 20% most deprived areas nationally. The East Midlands, as a region, lags behind the rest of the UK in workforce skills, and Lincolnshire has the lowest level of skills within the region.

HMIC ASB Inspection In spring 2010, Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) carried out a review of anti-social behaviour in England and Wales (1) Innes M. & Weston N. 2010. This included asking victims about their experience of reporting ASB to the police, and inspecting the quality of the processes that forces use in tackling and responding to the problem. Working with the Police Science Institute at Cardiff University that then used these results to answer the question of how the police can best tackle ASB.



HMIC identified the following as ‘what works’ (1) Forces have the best chance to give victims a good service if they do three key things: • Brief all relevant officers and staff (including neighbourhood policing teams, officers who respond to emergencies and CID officers) regularly and thoroughly about local ASB issues; • Regularly gather and analyse data and information about ASB places, offenders and victims in their area, and use this information to allocate resources to tackle the problems; and • Provide their neighbourhood policing teams with the right tools and resources to tackle ASB, and then monitor the plans the teams put in place to resolve local ASB issues. This is how Lincolnshire Police is performing in these areas (2) HMIC 2010 Lincolnshire Police ASB Inspection. Are all relevant officers and staff regularly and thoroughly briefed about local ASB issues? Some neighbourhood inspectors and sergeants hold briefings with neighbourhood policing teams and response staff to discuss specific ASB problems in the area. But due to the size of the force area and the limited number of sergeants, neighbourhood policing staff more regularly brief themselves and response staff about local ASB problems. When ASB incidents are initially attended by response officers, information is not always passed on to neighbourhood policing teams in an effective way. Often details of the incident are circulated in the hope that someone will deal with it, rather than it being allocated to a particular officer or police community support officer. Is the force using ASB information to target its work in tackling ASB? The force monitors how well it is doing in tackling ASB at regular meetings. The effectiveness of the action taken is assessed, but this process is not robust, in particular because it does not include information on repeat and vulnerable ASB victims. It is unclear how progress in resolving ASB issues is monitored by supervisors and kept on track. One of the local policing areas in Lincolnshire (covering the west of the county, including Lincoln) have recently started fortnightly assessments of repeat ASB victims. However, police resources are not then matched to areas where the ASB problem is the greatest. The other two local policing areas do not currently make such thorough assessments. The area covered by Lincolnshire Police experiences relatively moderate levels of crime, per head of population, and lower levels of anti-social behaviour (ASB). Do neighbourhood policing teams have the right tools and resources to tackle ASB, and are the plans they put in place to resolve local ASB issues monitored? Neighbourhood policing teams use a wide range of methods to deal with ASB. However they have not received training in how to work with partners to solve the problems that are the root cause of ASB. This means teams do not always use tried and tested methods for solving long term ASB problems. Regular meetings involving the police, local councils and other partner organisations are held, at which more difficult local ASB problems are considered. At these meetings plans are developed to address issues and progress is monitored. However, sometimes neighbourhood policing teams do not adopt a coordinated approach involving partners. This means problems are not always solved as quickly as they could be. 2. ASB Internal Review The force conducted an internal review across the five principle areas as identified by the Nome Office trial. Whilst the force recognised that it employed a lot of good practice in respect of managing ASB within its neighbourhood policing teams and that due to the structure of NPT within the force, cases of ASB involving repeat victim and location and vulnerable would be identified and appropriate action taken, it also recognised that the force lacked a corporate approach. The following was recognised:-



2.1 Risk Assessments and Victim Management Call taking and Risk Management – whilst the force has made considerable progress in key areas requiring risk assessment; particularly Domestic Violence, Missing Persons and some crime categories, this victim centred approach was not being employed within ASB. The FCR failed to risk assess ASB or recognise some crime was a symptom of ASB and therefore inform officer deployment appropriately. The review recognised that the issues identified by HMIC and Home Office in respect of the failure to identify Repeat and Vulnerable victims should be addressed at the initial call taking stage, forming part of a risk assessment. 2.2 Case Management The failure to risk assess and capture the needs of the victim tends to lead to the police response being categorised as a ‘scheduled’ incident; therefore we expose our victim to the risk of repeat incidents before police attend the initial call for service. The review team found examples of calls to service from repeat victims with a response time of four days. Recent research (3) Laughton P. 2011 conducted within force identified a clear trend in the number of calls victims make. The Table below suggests that the more times a complaint of ASB is made to the police from the same telephone number, the chance of that telephone number calling again to report further incidents increases. 17.6% of callers who reported one ASB incident went on to report at least one more incident, whereas 75.7% of callers who reported 9 ASB incidents went on to report at least one more incident. REPEAT CALLERS (3)

Number of calls from same telephone number

Total number of callers Percentage of callers who call again

At least 1 call 28569 At least 2 calls 5041 17.6% At least 3 calls 1856 36.8% At least 4 calls 890 48.0% At least 5 calls 518 58.2% At least 6 calls 349 67.4% At least 7 calls 250 71.6% At least 8 calls 188 75.2% At least 9 calls 148 78.7% At least 10 calls 112 75.7%

Table 5: Percentage and number of callers who will make another call to the police to report ASB from the same telephone number (August 2010-Septermber 2011). There are likely to be a combination of different explanations for this phenomenon. For instance, it may be that confidence to report to the police increases with increased contact with the organisation. However, these figures can also be interpreted in another way. They could, for instance, be taken as a demonstration that a standard police incident response is not very effective at dealing with certain types of ASB. Clearly the caller must perceive some benefit to calling the police, as otherwise we might expect to see the call for service to decrease. However, it could plausibly be suggested that this incident response may be geared up to dealing with symptoms and not the causes of the problem. This points towards the importance of good ASB case management for recurrent ASB issues. 2.3 ASB Strategy; Procedure and Policy The force, whilst having clear policies and systems for crime management, domestic abuse, missing persons, etc it had no system, policy, procedure or strategy in respect of ASB management, therefore different offices used different systems and processes, neither auditable nor accessible outside of their closest colleagues. This clearly exposes both the force and victim to risk that can be better managed.



This lack of structure, whilst creating risk for the force, also created risk for partners due to the lack of ability to share accurate and timely information. Further investigation identified that partners not only operated different systems; Flair, React and others, but also worked towards different definitions of Anti-social behaviour and performance indicators, driven centrally from different Government departments.

2.4 Community Engagement The force has a good reputation amongst its community for consultation and engagement. The force has an excellent neighbourhood policing structure that ensures regular engagement with communities through community panel meetings and by attending Parish Council meetings. The force had a limited understanding of its performance and perceived performance in respect of ASB. Victim surveys are captured from victims of some crimes, particularly serious acquisitive crimes which tend to receive more attention due to it being control strategy crime, in respect of these surveys Lincolnshire police perform well. Lincolnshire Police were better informed in respect of a HMIC commissioned survey, completed by IPSOS Mori in 2010(4)

IPSOS Mori. 2010, to survey ASB (within Lincolnshire focussing on ASB. The summary findings were:-

- 61% of respondents felt that anti-social behaviour was a big problem in their area, with 21% saying there was now more anti-social behaviour than a year previously.

- 31% felt well informed about what is being done by local services to tackle anti-social behaviour in

their area, and 49% agreed that local services are dealing with the antisocial behaviour issues that matter locally.

- 49% said they had called the police to report anti-social behaviour three times or more over the past

year.

- When considering a specific call they have made to report anti-social behaviour, 67% of respondents were satisfied overall with the way the police handled their call.

- 74% were satisfied with the way they were treated by the police and 68% were satisfied that the

police had taken them seriously.

- In terms of follow-up, 32% of respondents were aware of action taken by the police as a result of their call.

- 54% felt their call made a difference to the problem, while 40% said their call made no difference.

- 85% said they would encourage others to make similar reports of anti-social behaviour, though 14%

would not.

- 87% said that if they witnessed or experienced the same type of anti-social behaviour in the future, they would report the incident.

2.5 Information Sharing Lincolnshire is a two-tier authority, having seven districts, one county authority and four large registered social landlords; and at the time supported by five community safety partnerships. The force recognises the importance of ASB and partnership and has a police officer (ASB co-ordinator) dedicated as liaison between police and each local authority. However, as reported in the HMIC report, each ASB co-ordinator worked differently with each local authority. At the time of the HMIC visit two large local authorities (South Kesteven and South Holland) shared just one officer. It was also identified that in some cases information sharing agreements existed, some were not fit for purpose, others were expired, and in other areas police and local authorities relied on the Crime and



Disorder Act legislation, without any agreement in respect of data processing, therefore placing both public bodies and victims at risk in respect of confidential and personal data sharing. The sharing of information has historically relied on good local personal relationships between NHPT and local parties. The sharing of information was neither structured nor auditable and therefore the test of reasonable, proportionate and necessary could not be applied. Due to the lack of any risk assessment by police or any other responsible authority information in respect of those most at risk within our communities could not be properly shared. Frequently, high risk, repeat and vulnerable victims would be identified by NHPT or ASB co-ordinators who would then adopt a problem solving methodology, incorporating partners. Whilst positive in respect of responding to victim needs, the lack of structured and systematic sharing agreements and case management exposes organisations and individuals in respect of data sharing legislation and the human rights act. 3. Reason for Change The force had already identified a number of key risk areas, particularly call handling, case management and information sharing, and had already begun to take action. The force recognised that engaging in the Home Office trial would allow Lincolnshire to challenge its own performance further and compare and contrast processes and procedures with other forces participating in the trial, thus ensuring the capture and development of best practice. 3.1 Why Lincolnshire Volunteered for the Trial Having identified the opportunity for change and improvement, the force also recognised its strength, particularly in respect of its neighbourhood policing structure, the positive relationship with the community and excellent examples and foundation for further enhancing our partnership working. It should be noted at the time of the trial the force recognised that significant change was on the horizon, influenced by both the political and economic environment. The force recognised itself in the ‘Stop the Rot’ report presented by Dennis O’Connor HMIC (5)

O’Connor D. 2010. In that we should question whether we adopt a victim and harm approach to anti-social behaviour, disorder and crime. We need to ask; are we simply ‘crime’ focussed or even ‘solvability factor’ focussed, in that our response and service delivery is dictated by the likelihood of detection as opposed to the need of the victim. Are we inward focussed or meeting the needs of our communities and what is most important to our community. O’Connor summarised three key elements within his work, which suggested a lack of victim approach, a tendency to over complicate and the opportunity realised if we respond well, summarised as follows:-

Too much time and effort has gone into constructing increasingly technical definitions of ASB.

A more profitable way of ensuring that service delivery improves public facing outcomes is to operationalise a ‘social harm’ based metric. Rather than worrying about whether something is a crime or a disorder, or what precise type of disorder it is, police should be encouraged to start by establishing whether the event concerned is causing significant harm to individual or public interests. If so, they should seek to do something about it. Attending to the harm and impacts of problems in this way can be affected through application of the Signal Crimes Perspective methodology.

Police systems and processes for responding to ASB have become over engineered. There is strong evidence from the research that what victim’s value is a ‘boots on the ground’ response that finds ways to stop a problem as quickly as possible. Albeit more tentatively, the study also suggests that there may be a need to re-balance other parts of the approach being implemented by police and Community Safety Partnerships. In some areas it appears that too much reliance is being placed upon longer term problem solving based interventions, without properly considering the implications of these for public facing outcomes. More effort should be directed towards developing effective fast-time responses and to ensuring that all activity supports key public-facing outcomes. There is a strong case for conducting further more



detailed research into the relative performance and cost effectiveness of partnership working and its methods.

Policing and the effective management of ASB can be an agent for Community mobilisation.

Effective policing of ASB is important because of the role it has in shaping the overall health, efficacy and resilience of neighbourhoods and communities. Controlling ASB through effective police action is important in terms of being able to realise the government’s stated desire to foster the ‘big society.’ The police’s role in such efforts is about ‘gripping’ those social problems that corrode mutual trust and cohesion to create a ‘space’ where civic society can flourish and establish itself. There are important lessons to be gleaned about how policing can co-produce solutions to neighbourhood problems by working with the public from the National Reassurance Policing Programme that ran between 2003-5. All three elements were recognised within elements of the Lincolnshire approach to managing ASB and worthy of challenge. 3.2 Restructure; Neighbourhood Policing and Demand Management Historically the force, like many other forces, has continually extended its service delivery across communities, disciplines, diverse groups; extending its focus on diversionary activities and tactics to the point that the clarity between the role of socials services, district authorities, communities and police have become blurred and at times a little confused. The ASB Trial has allowed the force to reconstruct its response to ASB in line with the force restructure and in recognising the leadership given by the current Government in respect of its ‘Big Society’ and the community agenda. The force, capturing the views of Innes M (1), has recognised, whilst not moving away from neighbourhood policing or reducing crime and disorder through using a problem solving methodology, the role of the police should being a little more direct and communities need to become more self sufficient. 4. Force ASB Background Over the last two years Lincolnshire Police have received nearly 75,000 calls from members of the public reporting antisocial behaviour. This equates to just over 100 incidents per 1000 population(a)

ASB levels vary significantly across the county according to the different demographics of local areas. For instance, in the east coast resorts of Skegness and Mablethorpe, ASB incident

reporting is clearly seasonal, as the population of the area swells during the summer months. Incidents here are 41% higher in summer than in winter – far higher than the county average, where incidents only increase by 21% in summer.

Elsewhere, areas in county, which suffer from relatively high levels of deprivation, also

see disproportionately high levels of ASB. For example, the proportion of people affected by ASB in the town of Gainsborough is more than twice the Lincolnshire average. Youth-related ASB on one social housing estate in Grantham (Earlesfield) is nearly 4 times the county rate.

It is becoming increasingly clear that repeat callers (if not repeat victims) of ASB account for a sizeable portion of all ASB incidents. There is evidence to suggest that repeat callers account for 20% of all ASB incidents reported across the county between July(a) 2010 and June 2011

The force faces a number of structural challenges in its efforts to tackle ASB. The database structure of the force’s Command and Control software does not allow for

the robust identification of repeat victims due to the fact that it does not create person records.

The force has separate systems for incidents and crime. These systems do not interface,

making it difficult to identify where behaviour has escalated from antisocial to criminal.



Prior to the ASB project, vulnerable victims could only be identified clumsily (using

demographics via Experian’s Mosaic tool). However, even this tool was only applied to incidents retrospectively, so it did not inform the force’s initial incident response.

a Figures calculated using population estimates based on GP registered population (October 2010). b Repeat caller defined as somebody who has reported three or more incidents of ASB over a 12 month period

5. The Objective of the Home Office Call Handling Project (ASB Challenge Project). The ASB Challenge was born out of the Home Office Call Handling trial, capturing those areas the force recognised needed action internally and challenging our partners across the county to engage and work with us to put in place a ‘world’ class response to anti-social behaviour, a partnership response that pushes the boundaries of what has gone before. The ASB Challenge project is, as this report is being written, very much work in progress and very ambitious. The objectives of the project are:-

5.1 Objectives;

Objectives;

Manage incidents of ASB more effectively and efficiently across all partners within Lincolnshire;

Provide improved service and protection to the public;

Increase public confidence through improved engagement and

understanding;

Identify repeat and vulnerable victims and respond more efficiently;

Improve information sharing across all partners extending into third sector and charities such as victim support; 5.2 Method 5.2.1 Develop Joint Strategy; Policy and Procedure The Problem The problem identified was that to succeed in dealing with ASB across the county ALL partners have to work together with agreed objectives. It was recognised that a number of cases that attracted national media attention identified the failure of some to share information and respond in a timely and appropriate manner. Partners – The project initially consisted of Lincolnshire Police supported closely by West Lindsey District Council (WLDC). WLDC were involved at the launch stage due to the relationship between the Police lead and the Community Safety lead for WLDC. The initial stage of the Challenge Project was identifying and then gaining the support and buy-in of key partners. The project recognised at the very early stage, to secure success we would require the buy-in from key partners which included:-

- 7 District Councils - County Council - 4 Registered Social Landlords (RSLs) - Fire & Rescue - Victim Support and



- Police

The initial stage was to send a letter of explanation to all strategic leads, asking for their support whilst identifying a monetary and resource commitment. This letter was quickly followed by a local partnership mini conference to which all Tactical leads were invited. This process has worked well throughout the project, with the tactical leads making up the project group, which has since migrated to the project steering group. The challenge has been updating Strategic Leads as the project has progressed and become embedded. It is clear that across a number of partners strategic leads have lost sight of the project and not factored funding and resource into their future plans. The second challenge has been the resource to deliver on this type of communications strategy. Learning 1 – Develop a comprehensive communications strategy and ensure resource is in place to support such a strategy.

Strategy, Policy and Procedure – The initial stage required partners to review what each partner had in place in respect of Strategy, Policy and Procedure. It was clear that RSLs all had all three elements in place whilst the majority of the other partners had very little and therefore the challenge was whether the RSLs would subscribe to a county and partnership wide approach. It was relatively quickly agreed that all partners were open minded to adopting a county wide approach, and therefore Draft documents were drawn up, Appendix 2,3 and 4. It was at this stage partners realised that the definitions to which they were working were at times vastly different. RSLs were working to the ‘Housemark’ requirements; police were working towards primary legislation whilst Districts worked towards a mixture of definitions. Recognising points raised within Dennis O’Connor’s report ‘Stop the Rot’(5) and subsequent documents that underlined the ‘over complicating issues’ and the failure to take action, the group agreed to adopt a broad definition of ASB to which all could work with a clearer definition of a repeat victim, as detailed in appendix 1,2, and 3. Learning 2 – This element of the project began in April. In September, all partners have still to ratify the Strategy, Procedure and Policy. Whilst all have agreed in principle some authorities are required to progress through Committee. 5.2.2 Funding and Resource The Problem The call handling trial and preceding HMIC reports had identified 5 elements requiring attention, including a systems approach to Case management. The Home Office offered £3,000. It was clear that this funding would be wholly inadequate. The issues, raised by HMIC and other reports identified complex issues requiring culture change and system & process change across disciplines, communities and partners, leading to considerable work streams requiring considerable human resources. The nature of an ASB case management system, with in excess of 400 users (all requiring training) and a forecast of over 35,000 live ASB cases, suggest the need for robust systems and QA management and therefore a dedicated system administrator. Funding – It was clear that investment would be required to enable the delivery of an IT solution to case management. Initially partners considered options within each organisation, extending access to establish systems within partner organisations. This created more challenges and quickly became unachievable.



The nature of the project meant that it sat neatly under the County Strategic Community Safety Board, which had as a Performance Theme, ASB and Violent Crime. Therefore, a bid and presentation was made to the board, which led to a grant of £50,000 to support the initial purchase, the licence and the first years support. Each partner agreed a contribution of £900.00 to support development and software. Some partners have met their obligations whilst others have failed, leaving a shortfall to be picked up by Police. As we approach the second year, partners will be asked to support the project with a commitment of £2,000. As the project has progressed and other products have been required including community surveys, training programmes and further IT support, the project has struggled to find the funding, which in turn has created considerable work in fund raising during the implementation stages. Resource – The second element of the project became evident as the plan (Appendix 5) was drawn up. There was no availability or offer of resource from any partner. Therefore the project would run without a dedicated project manager or any supporting resource. As the plan was developed key personnel was identified against key elements within the project plan. Learning 3 – The funding element should be considered and challenged before the project has been launched. This should include a formal signed agreement across partners. Learning 4 – This project has been run part-time, this has created risk due to lack of structure and attention in areas requiring detailed scrutiny. This size of project should be fully resourced to mitigate risk and ensure timely progress. Learning: 5 - a number of much smaller projects and countywide initiatives have been launched that has attracted considerable more support. The ASB Challenge project should have recognised this and used other projects as a benchmark for potential need. 5.2.3 Develop Partnership Approach to Risk Assessment The Problem HMIC identified that Lincolnshire Police could not readily identify vulnerable and repeat victims of ASB. Further review within force identified that calls for service in respect of ASB were not risked assessed formerly at any stage and thus the force was placing itself and victims at risk. It should be noted the force struggles at call taker level to take a ‘victim’ or ‘harm’ view, relying on graded response dictated by crime type. ‘Stop the Rot’ (5) O’Connor D. HMIC

2010 states: - It should be noted that “calls for service” are managed by way of attendance criteria, and a graded priority response16 often leaving grading decisions to control room operators who may be unaware of the history or the impact of the behaviour being reported.17 This has been the accepted method for many years, and has been recommended to the police by many agencies, including HMIC. However, the analysis showing the impact on public outcomes and satisfaction cannot be ignored. Those forces with the best systems and processes are not always those who have the greatest demand and, where systems are poor, the chances of those cases, where the risk to individuals is greatest, not being properly addressed are necessarily increased.

Force Risk Assessment – The force took immediate action. Recognising that NSPIS command and control could not deliver an automated solution to this problem and method was devised that required call takers to conduct a number of searches across different systems. This failed due to the complexity and the time the process took to complete. The national risk assessment matrix (RAM) for ASB was considered, but after consultation and engaging with other forces it was identified as being unsuitable due to its complexity and the nature



of the questions. It should be noted the national ASB RAM has been adopted at a later stage within the process to be utilised by suitably qualified staff. Short Risk Assessment – It was recognised that the risk assessment required at the call taker stage of the process, whilst very important and key to ensuring each case is progressed appropriately, it was also recognised that we as a force required a ‘common sense’ approach and didn’t want scripts or pro-forma. It was also recognised that we could not establish the nature of the incident by searching our systems. We needed to recognise that a victim might be a repeat victim, but this was their first call to police. It was agreed that each call taker would ask four questions (See appendix 4 Procedure), which would allow us to identify vulnerability, hate crime, repeat victim and the level of risk. A pro-forma was agreed to allow Quality audit and ensure that the incident is closed with a qualifier, which will allow analytical work to be conducted by the force analyst.

Partnership Risk Assessment – having agreed a process in force, all partners have adopted the same risk assessment, which has now been incorporated onto Sentinel (ASB Countywide case management system).

Detailed RAM – The detailed, national RAM, has been identified as necessary once the appropriate resource has been deployed and the ASB incident has been identified as either; repeat, vulnerable, complex or protracted and thus requiring more detailed understanding. Learning 6 – the force, by adopting a risk adverse stance in developing what it perceived as a ‘catch all’ process actually created more risk due to the complexity. We need to train, trust and hold accountable. Learning 7 – the force has developed a response to calls for service, as identified by O’Connor D. (6), based on crime category, which impacts on measured performance indicators. A historic barrier to improve service quality at this stage has been targets set to answer ALL calls within a certain time frame and progress the caller OFF the phone as quickly as possible. This culture still requires challenge. 5.2.4 Training Plan The Problem Following the HMIC inspection and further force reviews that included a review of the management and closure of ASB within force systems and challenges in respect of our NIM processes it is clear that whilst our Neighbourhood Policing teams demonstrate positive examples of ASB management it is clear that a whole force approach should be adopted. The ASB Challenge team found that few officers understood ASB, the risks and the harm & impact on communities, as identified in ‘Stop the Rot’(5)

O’Connor D.2010 In the context of ‘crime control’ and its association with crime statistics, ASB is relatively important, However, it has over time become a second order consideration as has keeping the peace. The issues and resolutions arising from the policing of ASB have not counted or been counted in the same way as those relating to crimes. The force did not have a ‘training’ approach to ASB, Victim management, and understand vulnerability. A training programme was required, that needed to be developed and then delivered across the force and partners. An Inspector lead was identified to develop and lead the training in respect of a holistic approach to ASB. This included pulling together a schedule of training. The task was to train 180 Neighbourhood Policing Officers, of which 125 had little understanding of Neighbourhood Policing, problem solving, and partnership working; train 149 PCSOs, approximately 100 partners and deliver training across the force to intelligence officers, CID, response officers and those working in MARAC, MAPPA, IOM and YOS.



It was identified that Charnwood Borough Council, Leicestershire (Wendy Brown) had already developed vulnerability training and thus this package was kindly gifted to Lincolnshire to incorporate within the Lincolnshire training package. It was clear that we could not train all staff, develop the system and launch across 15 partners all at one time. .Whilst the initial stages on the project were accelerated to secure buy-in from across the county a slower schedule of ‘role out’ was developed and the training identified to precede the role out schedule. The training was to prove more problematic than we first anticipated, mainly due to the availability of staff to train; trainers to deliver the training and that processes and systems were still being developed. Learning 8 – the idea to ‘role out’ slowly and cascade training was the right decision. However, the training should have been delayed until procedure, strategy, policy and process maps were complete. 5.2.5 Definitions, Vulnerability and Repeat Victims The Problem Police, whilst having a definition of ASB, did not have a clear understanding of the definition, nor had Police clarified ‘vulnerability’ and repeat victims in the context of ASB. This issue was further compounded by the fact that many partners had unclear views and understanding whilst others had clear definitions that were different from other partners. It should be noted that different Government depts. Fed this confusion. The steering group (project group) recognised this issue in the early stages of the project. It was this early recognition that drove the development of the county strategy, policy and procedure. All three documents were developed and consulted through a number of draft stages, untimely recognising an ASB definition that all partners could subscribe to and defining both repeat and vulnerable victims. Learning 9 – until this project partners have been working together across ASB not realising that we had different definitions for ASB, repeats and didn’t really understand vulnerability. It is suspected that a lack of understanding has led to the under reporting of some hate crime, work in progress and being monitored. 5.2.6 Data Sharing The Problem A mentality has developed across partners of data protection as opposed to data sharing. It is clear that punitive action taken by courts against public bodies who have failed to manage personal data properly or made errors which has led to unlawful disclosure, has led to a ‘nervous’ and reluctant sharing culture. The cautious behaviour exercised at a corporate level has led to operational staff, who work across partners, making decisions outside clear policy or procedure to ‘get the job done’ and thus creating more risk and sharing information that can not be audited or managed. It is clear some partners still feel the need to gain the permission of the perpetrator of an offence to allow them to share information that is appropriate, correct and necessary to reduce crime and disorder with partners.



There existed a myriad of information sharing agreements (ISA) across the county with different partners. The ASB project group agreed that NO data would be shared on the sentinel system until an ISA was in place that serviced all partners within the ASB field. To ensure a clear understanding of Data sharing and the role of the ISA it was agreed that elements of data protection, crime & disorder act and human rights would be included within the training. Further work with the force information management unit identified that we need to establish a ‘system’ owner, that data sharing agreements needed to be develop and agreed between the system owner and system users and that a clear contract in respect of data sharing, data transfer and data storage needed to be written up and agreed across partners and with the system supplier. Learning 10 – the complexity of data sharing, data processing, information security and technology was underestimated. This element alone required a detailed project plan. 5.2.7 Case Management The Problem The case management system, to achieve the objectives of the ASB Challenge Project will need to host 15 partners with 400 staff having daily access. The project anticipates having up to 35,000 cases on the system uploaded through interface and manually each year. The system is Web based (to achieve coverage) and can be accessed from any computer with web access. How do we ensure the security and integrity of the data, how do we ensure staff accessing the system are properly vetted and monitored, how do we ensure staff leaving the organisation are no longer able to access the system. The project team agreed all staff using the system would be police vetted. This was later downgraded to CRB enhanced as a number of partners received challenges from Unison stating that this requirement was not on individual’s contract. Partners have now amended their contracts to include police vetting as a requirement. The ISA and Data Processing agreements will clarify each organisations responsibility for their own staff. The system has full audit capability in respect of individual access (see audit process below). In respect of Lincolnshire Police personnel local ASB co-ordinators will ensure staff leaving the organisation is barred from accessing the system.

Learning 11 – Contracts for all staff should include a vetting requirement.

5.2.8 Quality Management The Problem With over 400 people having access, many manually updating, all managing case workloads and creating information and intelligence how we ensure a consistent quality. How do we ensure each organisation delivers the same robust audit process to ensure the same uniform high standards are maintained across the county? The project recognised that each organisation had different internal audit processes to ensure compliance across most disciplines. However, these processes would not ensure uniformity across partners. The project plan commission Lincolnshire County Council audit department to develop a cross county and cross partnership audit process (Appendix 6 – draft proposal)



Partners have agreed, in principal, to adopt an audit process that allows each organisation to self-audit and then for a peer review against that self audit. The standard and consequence for non-compliance have still to be agreed. Learning 12 – Careful consideration needs to be given to how standards are maintained across partners, ensure full compliance with policy and procedures.

5.2.9 Risk Management The Problem The project, whilst mitigating many risks within ASB and amongst partners also creates many, ranging from Data Loss through to poor quality service impact on partners. The Risk Register is a fundamental tool in a project of this nature, ensuring partners are aware of the risks and interventions are in [place are being put n place to mitigate such risks. The Lincolnshire ASB Challenge project failed to put in place a risk register at the beginning of the project, and at the time of reporting have not tackled this issue. Learning 12 – The project risk register should be developed as the project progresses and be a dynamic tool. 5.2.10 Across Initiative Links Within Lincolnshire we have a number of key initiatives that compliment the ASB Challenge project or the project compliments them. They include:-

Integrated Offender Management (IOM) Family Working Together Projects (FWT) MAPPA MARAC Victim Support Safeguarding

How do we ensure that the ASB Challenge project supports other initiatives? The Police lead for the ASB Challenge project is also police lead for the FWT project. This issue now sits on the minutes of the FWT project group. The intention is that all dedicated workers, working on FWT will be trained to use Sentinel and thus be able to gain information and intelligence and update any files in Sentinel in respect of any work conducted by FWT. It has also been discussed that opportunities exist for Sentinel to be utilised as part of the exit strategy for FWT and MAPPA subjects. In respect of IOM, both police personnel and partners on the IOM project will also have access to Sentinel so they can cross-reference any ongoing work. Victim Support has now expressed a desire to become a fully-fledged partner. This is being progressed. The intention is to allow Victim Support access so they can update any cases with actions and outcomes following their visit to victims. MAPPA have expressed an interest, as mentioned above, to utilise Sentinel as part of their exit strategy. It is recognised that a MAPPA subject once downgraded, just drops from the MAPPA system into the community, not supervised, reviewed, managed or supported. Opportunities might be realised using Sentinel and the ASB challenge project. MARAC and Safeguarding are work in progress.



Learning 13 – When developing processes and policies ensure links are clear with other projects, to reduce overlap and duplication and realise economies of scales, shared skills and ability and shared resources.

5.2.11 Performance and Evaluation The Problem Due to the lack of information in respect of ASB, how do we measure performance and evaluate the public’s response. The force has data in respect of the crime survey and a force survey conducted with victims of ‘control’ crime categories. The force also has data in respect of ASB performance across 14 categories. However, due to some poor recording and closure over the years this data is unreliable. Partners also have some information, but again confidence in the data is mixed. In line with the requirement of the ASB Call taking trial a Benchmarking questionnaire has been developed (Appendix 7) to establish, at a moment in time, the views of victims of ASB within Lincolnshire (Appendix 1 summary of Results). The survey, conducted over the phone. The survey sample consisted of 600 randomly selected individuals who had been victims of ASB reported during May and June 2011. 150 individuals were selected from each of the four Neighbourhood Policing Districts, giving a total sample that is statistically significant at the county level (95% Confidence with 50:50 variability). A difference of greater than 8% is required for statistical significance between Neighbourhood Policing Districts. The survey was conducted during July 2011 and took the form of scripted telephone interviews, undertaken under contract by SMSR Ltd. The survey will be conducted again, early in the New Year, once it is considered that the ASB Project has been properly embedded across the county. Financial Modelling – The ASB Challenge Project has also subscribed to the financial modelling element of Sentinel. This will, in time, allow us to estimate the impact, financially, of the project on all partners.

6. Impact, Outcomes and Performance

6.1 Current Picture The force is currently experiencing the usual seasonal increase of ASB incident reporting. Total ASB increased in July 2011 (152 incidents) compared with June 2011. Increases have been noted in all four Neighbourhood Policing districts.

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Total ASB incidents over the last 18 months, Lincolnshire (red line represents monthly average) Author: P Laughton, Neighbourhood Analyst Date: 03/08/2011

However, compared to the same time last year, ASB incidents are considerably down. Incidents in July 2011 are 24.1% (984 incidents) lower than they were in July 2010. This is part of a continuing trend of decreases, which has been getting larger every month since April 2011 (see table below). Although it is difficult to say with certainty, it is plausible to suggest that this reduction may be an unintended consequence of the ASB Challenge Project, and more specifically, the requirement on FCR staff to complete a proforma for all ASB incidents (introduced on 9th May). Most notably, incidents closed as ‘ASB Inconsiderate Behaviour’ have decreased by 30.4% (618 incidents) this month compared to July 2010. This ASB category has been widely recognised as a convenient ‘catch all’ category for miscellaneous incidents, which were not always ASB. The disproportionate reduction of incidents closed with this categorisation may suggest that alternative and more appropriate closure codes are now being employed for those miscellaneous incidents, which were previously closed as Inconsiderate Behaviour.

INFERENCE

The introduction of the ASB proforma has led to a significant reduction of incidents inappropriately closed as ‘ASB Inconsiderate Behaviour’.

The corollary of this inference is that the decrease of incidents closed as ASB does not necessarily translate to an actual reduction of the levels of offending. Instead it would appear that this decrease





is due to changes in recording practices. This means that statistical comparisons with previous year’s ASB data are no longer straightforward. Total ASB incidents, Lincolnshire, comparison by month

th erence fference February 2314 2538 224 9.7% March 2844 2956 112 3.9% April 3356 3160 -196 -5.8% May 3259 2896 -363 -11.1% June 3535 2738 -797 -22.5% July 4079 3095 -984 -24.1%

Another knock on effect of the ASB Challenge Project appears to be that the use of the ‘youth-related’ incident qualifier has significantly decreased. The number of ASB incidents closed with this qualifier has reduced by nearly half (44.2%) over the last 3 months compared to 2010. This again seems to be the result of changed recording practises in the FCR. The emphasis on the use of PEN (Personal, Environmental and Nuisance) codes for ASB incidents appears to have resulted in a drop off in use of the ‘youth’ qualifier. This seems to be confirmed by the following finding. In July 2010 there were 197 ASB incidents, which did not have the ‘youth’ qualifier, but which mentioned the word ‘youth’ in the source supplied field on Command and Control. In July 2011 (despite the fact that there were 984 fewer overall ASB incidents) there were 220 incidents, which did not have the ‘youth’ qualifier, but which mentioned the word ‘youth’ in the source supplied field. This suggests that the number of incidents, which missed a ‘youth’ qualifier went up in July 2011, even though the total number of ASB incidents was 24.1% lower than the previous year. There are significant implications of this change in recording practices for the force’s ability to identify spikes in youth-related ASB across the force. 6.2 Outcomes It is clearly too early in the project to measure outcomes. However, the initial Benchmark questionnaire has been completed (Appendix 1) which highlights some key issues for the force and partners to work on and some relatively positives performance already in place, namely:

50% of respondents (300) were ‘repeat victims’.

For 16.3% of repeat victims the incident occurs daily. For 58.3% of repeat victims the

problem has been present for more than a year.

59% of repeat victims have reported the incident to the police 2 or more times. 30% have reported the incident more then 5 times.

On 78% of cases repeat victims had previously reported the incident to the police.

53% of ASB victims wanted to be kept informed by the police. Only 49% of these individuals were kept informed.

51% of respondents were satisfied with the way they were kept informed. Generally around 80% of respondents, or greater, felt that they were treated well. 78%

felt the police took the matter seriously; 81% felt the police communicated what was going to happen clearly; 82% felt the police behaved sympathetically. 90% felt they were treated fairly and 95% believe they were treated with respect.

In 56% of cases the problem had been resolved at least in part.



6.3 Outputs and Impacts

- Strategy, Policy and Procedure The ASB Partnership has in place, for the first time, an across partnership & county ASB strategy, policy and procedure. These documents straddle some complex issues, particularly around performance indicators and definitions established across different parts of central government. The partnership has managed to establish structure and wording that accommodates all. However, the document also states that partners will at times be unable to stay within the County policy or procedure, the steering group has accepted this, with the caveat that such deviations with be explicit.

- Analytically Report Historical, each partner has reported its own view of ASB, according to its own information and intelligence, which was far from a complete picture. The police have never developed a corporate report that identifies repeats, vulnerable, or high risk ASB, this has now been done. An internal report is produced each week and distributed to all local Policing leads. A similar report, with more detail, is generated each month and shared internally and externally with partners who are part of the ASB ISA. This report will feed and support the development of ASB Risk Assessment Conference (ASBRACS), as below.

- ASBRACS (ASB Risk Assessment Conference) The county has hosted a variety of partner meetings including Joint Agency Groups (JAGs) Joint Intelligence Meetings (JIMS) Anti-social Behaviour Assessment Groups (ASBAGS) and ASB Theme Groups. All have delivered some positive results and engaged partnership response. However, it should also be recognised that the lack of a corporate approach across the county has lead to confusion amongst partners, which creates considerable risk. The first ASBRAC was held in the County at the beginning of September, led by ~Boston Borough Council. It is reported that the meeting, driven by the police process (App 9) and the Monthly report (App 10), was relatively successful. Work is ongoing, using the Lancashire Police model (App 11) to deliver this process across the county.

- Internal Impact The force has progressed its understanding of ASB. With the implementation of the Risk Assessment Process and using the PEN codes, the FCR management of ASB incidents has become a little more accurate. However, it is recognised that this is very much work In progress. Following the force re-structure the NIM process has been re-visited, moving away from a focus on ‘Control Strategy Crimes’ (crimes deemed important during a strategic period) but on crimes and issues that are worthy of Police attention based on a number of factors; one of these factors being Risk. This process has identified ASB has the greatest risk facing the force and therefore drives action to mitigate this risk. As part of the re-structure the force has identified strategic leads for key areas of business, including ASB and ASB has been given a dedicated Analyst, which has allowed the development of the new reporting system, as above.

- External Impact



The ASB Partnership has brought together partners that have never worked together. The partnership has encouraged the sharing of information, the sharing of resources and the sharing of skills. It is clear that partners have a better appreciation for the challenges and difficulties that face each individual organisation. The ASB Partnership has also developed a product to which extended partners, who might never have understood the importance of ASB and ASB management is respect of wider crime and social issues, have become interested and have expressed a desire to link in with ASB and the Sentinel system, this is particularly true of IOM, FWT, MAPPA and Safeguarding.

- Benchmark Report The force has not really focussed on the needs or concerns of victims of ASB. The Benchmark report has allowed the force to survey victims of ASB directly and gain their views. In broad terms the results (App 1) identify some real positives in how victims think the police have performed. The negative is that we have far to many repeat victims, which not only impacts on our community but places considerable strain on our finite resources. The ASB Partnership recognise that if we managed repeats more effectively we would enjoy a reduction in demand on police resources whilst freeing time to focus on those more complex cases. 7. Challenges and Difficulties The challenges are: - Maintaining the impetus – As the project heads into its second year, other challenges, initiatives and central demands are placed at the feet of public bodies. The drive of the ASB Partnership is to ‘mainstream’ ASB and partnership working across the county. We are at a critical stage, in that virtually all elements are in place and the project is slowly becoming embedded. Resource The project has grown and grown. We recognise that we will have 15 partners, with 400 staff accessing and creating over 35,000 incidents per year. We recognise their will be a need to administrate the system, train and develop new staff, continually promote the ASB partnership, ensure links with other initiatives are working and in 2012 link in the proposed new legislation. Presently, the Government has supported this with £3,000 and the rest of the funding has used community funds, fast becoming extinct. The project has also been developed with just a few staff, with a full time and demanding ‘day jobs’ and has no dedicated staff. This position is not sustainable long term. Partnership With pressures of both staffing and funding being placed on partnerships the project is already experiencing difficult negotiations with partners in respect of funding the project. Whilst work is ongoing across the partnership to galvanise support the Police will need to consider its ‘exit ‘ strategy from the project, whilst retaining its ability to identify repeat & vulnerable victims and high risk ASB. 8. What we would do differently Structure – The structure of the ASB Challenge Project has two active groups. The Steering Group, on which each partnership has a ‘middle’ manager representing the organisation and an operations group which consists of tactical and operational leads who have a ‘hands on’ knowledge and understanding of ASB. Whilst the ASB Challenge Project is answerable to the County Community Safety Strategic Group via the Strategic Management Board (a theme group), it is never held to account and therefore the



partnership strategic leads are removed from the progress of the project and thus any ownership or detailed understanding. A project of this size should have a strategic steering group chaired by a senior manager supported by senior representatives (those able to make strategic decisions) from across the partnership. The existing tactical steering group should have been established as a project group with a clear exit strategy. Resources – The project should have been properly supported with project management support. Considering the numbers and complexities of the project, it is clear that this should have been managed using the ‘Prince II’ principals. As part of the resourcing issue, a clear funding structure should have been established. Much of the Chairs time has been used in finding and negotiating funding to enable the project to continue. Contracting – Whilst the challenge project did require the support of strategic leads in the very early stages, which it got. It appears that some strategic leads have now moved on, taking with them the corporate memory of their decision or those that have remained, some have forgotten their commitment to the project. The project should have contracted with all partners in a more formal manner to ensure a clear understanding of the commitment required. Communications Strategy – Key to success of the project is an ongoing internal and external media strategy, ensuring regular updates. The ASB Project managed one Briefing document. This has proven wholly inadequate. It should be recognised that the project did employ a media officer to deliver on this strategy, but due top other pressures and a lack of corporate interest, the officer migrated to other pieces of work, leaving the ASB Challenge project to lead. 9. Future The ASB Trial was initially established to tackle: -

Risk Assessing ALL ASB Improved Information Sharing Implement a Strategy, Policy and Procedure Case Management Community Engagement

It is fair to say that we are now risk assessing 75% of ASB, that we have information sharing agreements in place across the county and using the sentinel case management system are sharing information ‘real’ time. We also have a monthly report that reports all police repeat, vulnerable and high risk ASB to partners. We have a Strategy, Policy and procedure going through ratification across partners; Sentinel is up and running across the county with over 500 cases; and work in now ongoing in respect of community engagement. All CSPs have received presentations, we have engaged with our community panels and the development of ASBRACS will further enhance this piece of work. AS stated above (Challenges) the future will depend on the continued commitment of partners, this will be influenced heavily by both the Government Agenda and the Police Crime Commissioner. 10. Learning – Consolidated Learning 1 – Develop a comprehensive communications strategy and ensure resource is in place to support such a strategy. Learning 2 – This element of the project began in April. In September, all partners have still to ratify the Strategy, Procedure and Policy. Whilst all have agreed in principle some authorities are required to progress through Committee.



Learning 3 – The funding element should be considered and challenged before the project has been launched. This should include a formal signed agreement across partners. Learning 4 – This project has been run part-time, this has created risk due to lack of structure and attention in areas requiring detailed scrutiny. This size of project should be fully resourced to mitigate risk and ensure timely progress. Learning: 5 - a number of much smaller projects and county wide initiatives have been launched that has attracted considerable more support. The ASB Challenge project should have recognised this and used other projects as a benchmark for potential need. Learning 6 – the force, by adopting a risk adverse stance in developing what it perceived as a ‘catch all’ process actually created more risk due to the complexity. We need to train, trust and hold accountable. Learning 7 – the force has developed a response to calls for service, as identified by O’Connor D. (6), based on crime category, which impacts on measured performance indicators. A historic barrier to improve service quality at this stage has been targets set to answer ALL calls within a certain time frame and progress the caller OFF the phone as quickly as possible. This culture still requires challenge. Learning 8 – the idea to ‘role out’ slowly and cascade training was the right decision. However, the training should have been delayed until procedure, strategy, policy and process maps were complete. Learning 9 – until this project partners have been working together across ASB not realising that we had different definitions for ASB, repeats and didn’t really understand vulnerability. It is suspected that a lack of understanding has led to the under reporting of some hate crime, work in progress and being monitored. Learning 10 – the complexity of data sharing, data processing, information security and technology was underestimated. This element alone required a detailed project plan. Learning 11 – Contracts for all staff should include a vetting requirement. Learning 12 – Careful consideration needs to be given to how standards are maintained across partners, ensure full compliance with policy and procedures. Learning 13 – When developing processes and policies ensure links are clear with other projects, to reduce overlap and duplication and realise economies of scales, shared skills and ability and shared resources.



11. References 1. Re-thinking the policing of anti-social behaviour. Innes M. & Weston N. © HMIC 2010 ISBN: 978-1-84987-303-1www.hmic.gov.uk 2. Anti-social Behaviour Inspection Report Lincolnshire Police © HMIC 2010 ISBN: 978-1-84987-281-2 www.hmic.gov.uk 3. Anti-Social Behaviour – Pro-forma Use and Repeat Callers. Laughton P. 2011. Lincolnshire Police 4. Police response to anti-social behaviour research report -Lincolnshire Police Research report prepared for HMIC by IPSOS MORI. © HMIC 2010 ISBN: 978-1-84987-328-4 www.hmic.gov.uk 2010 5. Stop the Rot. O’Connor D. In HMIC 2010 the HMIC, www.hmic.gov.uk ISBN: 978-1-84987-303-1). Innes M. © HMIC 2010 ISBN: 978-1-84987-303-1 www.hmic.gov.uk

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