Community Safety
Wirral is a district in Merseyside. With a population of over 300,000 and covering nearly 160 km2 it is one of the larger metropolitan districts. Deprivation in the district is above average and over half the population live in wards that are amongst the 25 per cent most deprived in England. Manufacturing jobs have fallen to only 16 per cent of all jobs, with the decline of the traditional industries of ship-building, food processing and chemicals. Unemployment is above the national average - and well above average in Birkenhead.
The Home Office defines community safety as follows:
'community safety is an aspect of quality of life in which people, individually and collectively are protected as far as possible from the criminal or anti-social behaviour of others, and are equipped or helped to cope with those they do experience. It should enable them to pursue, and obtain fullest benefits from, their social and economic lives without fear or hindrance from crime and disorder and anti-social behaviour'.
The council has a statutory duty to consider community safety in all its activities across all departments. This function is co-ordinated by a small team, but there were also significant numbers of staff whose role is primarily concerned with community safety in the Education and Cultural Services, Housing and Environmental Protection and Social Services. Overall, the spend directly on community safety is about £1.6 million per year, but by its nature it is difficult to quantify an exact amount spent on community safety activity.
Scoring the service
A 'fair', one star service that has promising prospects for improvement
We assessed the council as providing a 'fair', one star, service that has promising prospects for improvement. We judged community safety in Wirral to be fair because whilst there are many strengths in the council's approach and a significant amount of activity directed towards addressing community safety issues, there are a number of areas to address. Our judgements were based on the evidence obtained during the inspection on which we provided a comprehensive report outlining both positive and negative findings. But to rise to the challenge of continuous improvement, organisations need inspection reports that offer practical pointers for improvement, so there was a full breakdown of recommendations too.
An example of a key strength that of the council's approach that the inspection team reported was:
- there is good consultation with the public and this, together with the recent introduction of Area Forums, puts it in a strong position to understand local people's concerns;
However the report also highlighted weaknesses in the council's approach, such as:
- The issues important to local people such as rowdy behaviour by young people, anti-social behaviour and vandalism and graffiti are not adequately addressed in CDRP plans for community safety. Although there are a number of activities to address these concerns they are not reflected in the key strategy documents, which means that their priority cannot be guaranteed and partners' contributions maximised. Whilst improving public perception of safety is a specific aim within the community safety strategy there is no clearly identified strategy and programme of activities aimed at reducing the fear of crime - for example, there is no media/communication strategy in place for the CDRP.
An example of one of the team's recommendations:
- In order to improve the prospect of achieving improvements in community safety for the people of Wirral work with Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnership partners to set objectives for reducing youth annoyance, anti-social behaviour, vandalism, and drug-related crime within the community safety strategy.
Please note: this link will open in a new window and take you to the relevant section within our corporate website.
