The draft Police and Crime Plan (published on 16 November) sets out the Mayor’s priorities on crime and policing for the period 2021-2025. The Plan also covers the annual budget for the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), the funding of crime prevention work and commissioned services to support victims of crime.
The consultation on the draft document will be open until 21 January 2022. The final version of the Police and Crime Plan will be published in the New Year alongside delivery plans, performance and oversight frameworks and an assessment of the equalities impacts of the plan.
This briefing draws out some of the key themes and commitments in the draft plan and highlights to opportunity for councils to engage with the consultation process and shape the final plan in the interests of Londoners.
Some Key Headings
Reducing and preventing violence
Reducing and preventing violence is the first stated priority for this Mayoral term. The draft PCP outlines the following areas of focus:
• Preventing and reducing violence affecting young people:
- The MPS will prioritise resources to places where the risk of violence is highest and will be working closely with partners in implementing a new Problem Oriented Policing approach.
- The VRU will continue to deliver against its current strategy which prioritises supporting young people.
- MOPAC and the VRU will intensify focus on understanding and addressing the relationship between drugs and violence in London.
•Making London a city in which women and girls are safer and feel safer:
- MOPAC is refreshing London’s Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) Strategy to expand on the whole-system approach previously adopted. The new strategy will combine effective action against perpetrators; high quality support for victims and survivors; and taking a public health approach to identify and address the underlying causes of VAWG.
• Reoffending by the most violent and high-risk groups is reduced:
- MOPAC and the MPS will continue to support an Integrated Offender Management approach in London – targeting the most persistent offenders with a multi-agency response to manage their behaviour and reduce their impact on the community.
- MOPAC will continue to work with London Councils and other partners to deliver the Blueprint for a Whole System Approach to Women in Contact with the Criminal Justice System, which aims to tackle the root causes of offending, prevent reoffending and ensure that women have the support they need after leaving prison.
• Preventing hate crime.
- The draft PCP commits MOPAC to ensuring that victims of hate crime receive the specialist support that best meets their needs and working with partners to build community confidence and resilience to stand together against hate.
- Working together to prevent terrorism
- The Mayor has commissioned Lord Harris to conduct a fresh review of London’s preparedness to respond to a major terrorist attack.
Increasing trust and confidence
- MOPAC will work with the MPS and communities to ensure that all the commitments in the Mayor’s Action Plan for Transparency, Accountability and Trust in Policing are delivered in full.
- MOPAC will continue to implement the Tackling Ethnic Disproportionality in Youth Justice Action Plan which compliments the Mayor’s Action Plan and builds on the work of youth justice agencies in tackling black and minority ethnic over-representation in youth justice.
Creating safer more confident communities
- Key to effective local crime prevention is strong working relationships between MPS Basic Command Unit (BCU) Commanders and local borough Leaders. MOPAC will continue to use its convening role to support and encourage these working relationships wherever possible.
- MOPAC will support Community Safety Partnerships (CSPs) to continue to promote partnership working and data sharing between key stakeholders. CSPs will work with local authorities and others to enable effective collaborative problem-solving approaches to crime and antisocial behaviour.
Better supporting victims
- During the period of this Plan, the Mayor’s aim is to increase the overall level of satisfaction victims of all crime have with the service they have received. MOPAC will have a specific focus on ensuring that victims of high harm offences have the specialist support they need.
- In order to improve prosecution and conviction rates, MOPAC and the Victims’ Commissioner for London will continue to work with the MPS and BTP to identify reasons why victims withdraw from the criminal justice process; and improve support to encourage more victims to come forward and help them through the process.
- The Mayor and MOPAC will continue to provide support for victims of domestic abuse, including making additional investment to increase the number of Independent Domestic Abuse Advisors (IDVAs) who provide critical support to high-risk victims of domestic abuse. MOPAC will also continue to work with the GLA, which has a new duty set out in the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 to provide refuge accommodation and specialist support for victims of domestic abuse in London.
Protecting people from exploitation and harm
- MOPAC will take a Child First approach to all of our work with children and young people – that is, treating each young person first and foremost as a person, not as a perpetrator or victim of crime.
- The MPS will continue to disrupt organised crime groups involved in criminal exploitation and modern slavery by developing intelligence, prosecuting offenders and seizing their assets - protecting the vulnerable and reducing repeat victimisation by targeting those offenders who do most harm.
How the Police and Crime Plan will be delivered
- The Mayor and MOPAC will provide in-depth scrutiny of the MPS’ performance in keeping London safe and delivering on the priorities in the Police and Crime Plan. MOPAC will also actively involve communities in its scrutiny of the MPS, overhauling its community monitoring structures to ensure that London’s diverse communities are better represented and can have a role in monitoring a wider range of police powers and activities.
- MOPAC’s proposed outcomes framework seeks to present a more balanced view across the priorities set out in this draft Plan. This aims to provide an alternative to a target-based approach by using a mixture of broad perception-based measures such as fear of crime; and confidence and objective measures such as crime levels, as measured both through the Public Attitude Survey and through police recorded crime.
Commentary
The safety of communities across the capital is the top priority for London boroughs. Councils continue to work closely with the Met, the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime, the VRU and the voluntary sector to keep London safe, and to prevent harm from occurring in the first plan. Boroughs will welcome the opportunity to influence the shape of the draft Police and Crime Plan by engaging with the consultation process. Boroughs will also welcome the on focus on the key themes in the draft plan including reducing and preventing violence, increasing trust and confidence, supporting victims and protecting people from being exploited or harmed.
