Speeches and Statements
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16 July 2007
Home Secretary's speech on his plans to reduce crime, at Newcastle Civic Hall in September 2007.
Good morning, first let me say what an absolute privilege it is to be here, delivering my first major policy speech as Home Secretary in the North East. In particular, I am delighted to be speaking to all of you, the people who are making communities safer day in day out. Collectively you have an impressive record for cutting crime in this region, in the last two years alone you have brought robbery down by 27% and burglary down by 26%.
This morning I met (NAMES) on the Byker Estate. It was inspiring to see everyone pulling together to improve their local community. I would like to pay tribute to them and to all of you for your fantastic work.
On my first day as Home Secretary, I said that it was hard to imagine a greater responsibility for someone elected by the British people than to be tasked with protecting them. My first few weeks in the job couldn’t have brought that responsibility home to me more sharply! The very serious challenges we are facing in terms of national security and counter terrorism are a major issue that we will be confronting for years to come.
However, the responsibility to protect the British people so that they can get on with their lives also means doing our utmost to tackle the crime that affects people’s daily lives. I am resolutely focused on the need to continue our substantial progress in cutting crime in our communities.
I want to talk to you today about my vision for how we can do this – together - in the coming years. About how far we have come and how and why we now need to refresh our approach.
10 years of cutting crime, transforming our approach
Over the last ten years we have revolutionised the crime fighting landscape.
As a government, we have provided record levels of funding, created new powers and new partnerships, set targets and invested in you – a crime fighting family – which includes for example youth offender managers, record numbers of police, neighbourhood wardens, and anti-social behaviour co-ordinators.
Together, we have developed the know-how. To coin a phrase – ‘we have the technology’. We also know that we need a range of skills to put what we’ve learned into practice. Together we have a better understanding of who commits crime, under what circumstances and how and when to stop it. This formidable combination has seen crime fall by 35% since 1997.
A decade ago, we accommodated crime; high rates of burglary, car theft and low level violence were met with a sense of resignation. Many doubted our ability to influence crime rates.
We have since proved that when you tackle unemployment and drug and alcohol misuse – crime comes down. When schools and health services, local authorities, police and neighbours work together - crime comes down. When you are not afraid to make tough choices about enforcing standards of behaviour – crime comes down.
The challenge always moves on, so must we
But, looking ahead, we face some real challenges.
Firstly, we haven’t got it right everywhere, some areas are more effective at cutting crime than others, and we need to take the best and make it happen everywhere.
Secondly, the nature of crime is constantly evolving. Technology provides opportunities for criminals - we are seeing use of the internet by paedophiles and fraudsters. But at the same time, it provides opportunities for the crime fighters, for example, our advances in forensics are helping us solve crime and bring justice.
We are serving a public that across our public services, quite rightly, expects and deserves better information, improved accountability and timely and effective solutions. In tackling crime as well, one of our greatest challenges is meeting the needs and expectations of the public, winning their confidence and bringing them in as part of the solution.
And finally, we need to be aware that there are major and competing pressures on the public purse, we must be sure that we are using funds wisely, getting the greatest efficiency we can.
Updated partnership
What this means is we have to get smarter about how we work. We all have a part to play in tackling crime but we need to look again at our respective roles - the role of central government, local agencies and individuals. Now is the time for us to update the terms of our partnership.
We will do this in the following ways:
We will refocus the work of central government, concentrating on areas where policy and delivery are newer and less mature. I will lead a drive to join up Whitehall in tackling crime - bringing Departments together under a new National Crime Reduction Board.
I will work closely with the Ministry of Justice, to ensure that sentencing punishes and deters, but balances this with the need to rehabilitate and hold public confidence. I will work with the Secretary of State for Health, on issues where our common endeavour delivers a better outcome. I am impressed, for example, by the work of Citysafe in Liverpool, where Accident and Emergency staff and the police are joining together and sharing information to reduce the harms from alcohol and tackle hotspot locations and bars. Right across Whitehall infact on housing, unemployment and young people’s services, we will combine our efforts on this common purpose.
I also want to reach out to new partners – like the business sector. I want a greater drive on designing out crime; to build alliances with consumers, the design and manufacturing sector so that the iphones and sat nav’s of the future are worthless to thieves. I want us to learn from areas like Bradford, where the redesign of a housing estate contributed to an 80% drop in burglary rates.
In our new partnership, we must also bring existing partners from the voluntary sector front and centre and allow them to be innovative and flourish. The NCH Dundee Families project, for example has led the way on finding solutions to working with some of our most challenging families and Government is now investing in this model and rolling it out across the country.
But above all, in our new partnership, we must take our lead from the public, listen to what they want from their crime fighting services and help them be part of the solution. To do this, we need to provide more regular, localised and meaningful public information. A leading example is www.beatcrime.info run by West Yorkshire police where local residents can tap in their postcode and find the latest information on crime rates on their street.
The public need to play their part, take the necessary responsibility and precautions to protect themselves and their families. They also need to be confident that they can turn to local agencies when they see an unattended bag, a fight brewing, a person selling drugs. And significantly, they need to be confident and turn to us when they themselves are victims – particularly of serious and sexual violence.
Updating our partnership, each of us playing to our strengths and making it work – this is the central challenge ahead of us. And I know that you too are keen to meet that challenge.
New Settlement – Free up local partners, build public confidence
If this new way of working is to be genuinely effective – everyone needs to play their full role. And I see it as my responsibility as Home Secretary to help make this happen. Under my leadership, I will ensure that we in government get smarter and more responsive – we will promote best practice, identify emerging new crimes; forge relationships with national partners and take tough action where necessary.
But we will also free partnerships up to perform better.
I am committed to providing greater decision-making powers at a local level. We will place fewer targets on local agencies, simplify our funding streams and make performance regimes more proportionate. We will give you the flexibility and freedom you need to focus on what really matters to your local communities. That’s my side of the deal.
And yours? To deal effectively with the full spectrum of crime from the everyday to the extraordinary. To listen and act on what is of most concern to local residents, pull together as partnerships, use best practice, analyse your local data, ensure full and effective use of powers available, get the support on offer from the centre – and work to standards of excellence. The public expects nothing less.
We only need to look at the example of Neighbourhood Policing to see the potential for a transformative impact when we are visible, work in partnership and listen to residents.
And let me clear, to help make this happen, we will be putting more information in the hands of the public. Performance assessments of the police and their partners will be made publicly available and at a more local level than ever before. We will want to engage with local areas where these assessments suggest there is problem, but I am committed to greater local accountability and giving local communities greater voice.
The prize I believe is that we will win the confidence of our local communities. And this is vital.
If crime falls but people do not see and feel that fall, individuals and communities themselves will not engage in the process of reporting and fighting crime – and a critical part of the crime-fighting family will be absent.
Continued pressure on anti-social behaviour
As I am sure you are aware anti-social behaviour continues to blight the lives of many individuals and communities. We must maintain a relentless drive on this. I know you understand the corrosive and cumulative impact of anti-social behaviour on our quality of life, and the confidence of citizens to live in communities. In 2003, the Government responded to this emerging trend with a coherent strategy, which we know is working. Some areas have seen significant improvements.
This is a key area where local people have to be part of the solution. It is they who know the alley way where people run when the police arrive, know the play area vandalised because the hedge is too high to see in, know the off-licence where you don’t get asked for ID!
In my experience, what the successful areas have in common is that they take the issue seriously, local people are encouraged to feed in concerns, there is honest discussion on the priorities for action between partners and with the public, decisions on action are followed up and feedback is given.
The challenge now is to bring all areas up to the standard of the best.
Renewed focus on young people
As I have seen today, we also need to renew our focus on young people if we’re to make progress.
Ten years ago we were facing the prospect of a generation significantly disillusioned and excluded from opportunity. We have done much to prevent that, reduce child poverty, lift communities out of deprivation and improve opportunity. But there is still a small number left behind, and we will redouble our efforts to tackle persistent social exclusion, particularly that which affects young people.
I draw inspiration from the success and impact we see on young people’s lives through programmes like Positive Futures and Kicks, where we see the sports industry working hand in hand with local communities to create exciting and positive alternatives for our young people.
We also know that young people are frequently victims of crime, they share a sense of fear and intimidation from gangs, drug dealers and anti-social behaviour. They want their communities to be safe places. We will focus more explicitly on improving the safety of young people, supporting young victims, but remaining tough on youth crime.
Ed Balls, the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families has set out his vision, that no child gets left behind. We will join and work alongside this new Department, and key partners like ACPO and the Youth Justice Board to give renewed impetus to improving young people’s safety and to promoting alternatives to crime, drugs and alcohol. I want to build on the positive links between schools and police already established through Safer Schools Partnerships and make sure that working with schools and young people is a core part of Neighbourhood Policing in every neighbourhood.
Greater focus on violent crime
And finally, I want to turn to violent crime. We all know the devastating impact of violence both on individuals and on communities. Over the last ten years, we have had much success in reducing violent crime, the BCS shows that overall violence has fallen by 34% since 1997. There have been real successes in reducing low level violence by tackling the causes - like alcohol. But, I think the time is now right for us to get more sophisticated in how we analyse and tackle serious crime. The overall picture is a more complicated one, whilst we are making inroads into gun crime which decreased by 16% during 2006, knife crime - a more widespread problem – remains a challenge.
So we must now redouble efforts to cut serious violent and sexual offences. We must face this challenge with confidence, drawing on the real progress that is being made, for example, in tackling domestic violence, where the number of successful prosecutions are increasing and domestic homicides are at their lowest ever level. This is largely due to the success of local agencies working effectively in partnership, combining their efforts to prevent violence in the first place, to prosecute and manage offenders and support victims to reduce harm. This will be at the forefront of our priorities over the coming months and I will want to return to the detail of what more we need to do in the area of violent crime in partnership with you.
Conclusion
It is a tremendous privilege to be asked to serve as Home Secretary. The protection of our families, friends and neighbours will be our shared objective. Together we can continue to drive down crime levels, clear about the new challenges and our roles in tackling them; informed by and accountable to the local communities who need to see and feel the difference; inspired by the ambition of thousands of dedicated people working on the front line to make our neighbourhoods safer.
Thank you for your effort and success so far and thank you for the further progress I know we can make together.
