London Councils has launched a new report ‘Reducing Reoffending in London: Why local solutions will deliver’ looking at local government’s role in reducing reoffending in the capital.
The report calls for a greater role for councils in the Government’s reforms. In particular:
In the short term it will be essential that the Ministry of Justice works closely with the
- Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC) and local government to ensure that new providers of probation service work with existing partnerships responsible for reducing reoffending.
- MOPAC and Community Safety Partnerships could play a useful role in ensuring local accountability for new providers of probation services.
- In the longer term pressure on all partners’ budgets, as well as the reforms within the probation service, will mean that it will be critical that local government is given the powers and responsibility to align and coordinate the resources of local partners in order to achieve better crime reduction outcomes and better value for money.
- Government should consider how they can incentivise local government to reduce crime and reduce reoffending by investing in local delivery.
Reducing crime and improving community safety are critical to London local government’s role in building and sustaining safe and prosperous communities. A key element of this is the rehabilitation of offenders.
We believe that this is best achieved through coordinated local services that are rooted in local democratic and accountability structures.
London boroughs:
- Coordinate and participate in local partnership working between the police, probation services, local NHS services and other voluntary and community sector partners.
- Commission and provide services to offenders such as drug and alcohol treatment and recovery; support with mental health need; housing, housing benefit, social services and employment support.
- Use civil enforcement powers such as ASBOs, injunctions and dispersal orders to tackle behaviour.
The changes proposed in the government’s Transforming Rehabilitation reforms have significant implications for how local government will work with partners to reduce reoffending in the future.
The intention to commission the majority of probation and rehabilitation services from the market at the national level raise a number of concerns - in particular how these reforms might affect joint working between local authorities, probation and the police to tackle reoffending at a local level. There is a real danger that successful local multi-agency programmes to tackle reoffending, as described in the attached report, will be lost in the government’s reforms and it will be essential that incoming prime providers take advantage of valuable local knowledge and experience.