Police and Crime Commissioner Joy Allen has welcomed a package of national reforms giving PCCs a stronger role to play in tackling reoffending.
The second part of the Home Office’s PCC Review, announced this week, gives Police and Crime Commissioners the ability to work across the Criminal Justice System to cut crime, drugs misuse and antisocial behaviour.
It also outlines new processes to strengthen PCCs accountability to the public, improve confidence in policing and enable PCCs to work more effectively with partners to tackle offending.
County Durham and Darlington Police and Crime Commissioner Joy Allen has welcomed the Review’s recommendations which will provide a huge boost to her plans to tackle antisocial behaviour and make communities stronger and safer.
She said: “Tackling crime and antisocial behaviour are top priorities for me and we are already exhausting every opportunity to work collaboratively with our partners and local communities to improve our response to victims and the public.
“These legislative changes will put in writing the high expectations placed on PCCs and will open up the corridors for greater collaboration in the future, particularly around offender management and tackling reoffending.
“This review gives PCCs greater authority within the justice system so we can work more proactively to reduce crime, using police resources to maximum effect and providing greater transparency to the public.
“As PCCs, we already bring together a multitude of agencies to tackle common goals and ambitions and I welcome further alignment of our purposes so we can deliver improved outcomes for victims, the public and offenders.”
Commissioner Allen’s Police and Crime Plan has already outlined her strong commitment to working with partners and local communities to support work to protect victims and vulnerable people, with plans to free up communication lines so that agencies and residents can feed in ‘soft intelligence’ to the police.
In response to antisocial behaviour, she has announced an action plan to improve how residents can report crime, deliver better crime prevention advice in communities and deliver enhanced measures to tackle antisocial behaviour, including support for victims.
Top headlines of the Review include:
• A new reciprocal duty for PCCs and Regional Probation Directors to consult each other when developing priorities with a further duty to allow and encourage collaboration.
• Putting Local Criminal Justice Boards onto a statutory footing, defining the role of PCC as Chair and setting out the expected membership
• A full review of Local Criminal Justice Boards to improve transparency, accountability and effectiveness
• Updating Violence Reduction Unit (VRU) guidance to provide greater clarity on the role of PCC in chairing the governance board, providing strategic direction and to recommend a dedicated VRU liaison officer with OPCCs.
• Consider the introduction of a new duty for Community Safety Partnerships to report on local Antisocial Behaviour strategy and deliver to PCCs.
• Amend the core PCC Guidance to reflect the PCC role in securing and maintaining public confidence in policing and tackling crime and antisocial behaviour.