Reducing crime : the Home Office Working with Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships

The Home Office has provided grants of [pound]926.8 million since 1999 to specific crime reduction projects. 354 Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships in England involve police, fire authorities, and the NHS working with the Probation Service, voluntary sector, local residents and businesses to find local solutions to local crime problems.

Such partnerships may focus on (1) potential and known offenders - specialist support such as dealing with drug dependency, keeping young people "off the streets"; (2) specific locations - identifying crime hotspots, where action might include better lighting, CCTV, cleaning up graffiti; (3) potential victims of crime - raising awareness, reminders to secure buildings and vehicles, advising vulnerable groups of risk.

The NAO finds that many of the schemes have been innovative, diverse in nature, and successful, contributing to the 39 per cent reduction in crime reported in the British Crime Survey between 1995 and 2003-04.

But the gains could have been greater if the administrative work had been minimised, grant applications had been simplified, and if the Partnerships had learned lessons from experience elsewhere. The Home Office has initiated some changes designed to simplify bureaucracy and performance management, and plans to merge some funding streams with the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister.

It has also launched 21 local area initiatives which will incorporate a still wider set of funding streams from the Home Office, ODPM, Department for Education and Skills and the Department of Health.