Home Office Safer Streets funding – London Borough of Barnet

In January 2020 the Home Office launched the Safer Streets Fund to fund preventive measures for acquisitive crime across England and Wales.

As the PCC, MOPAC submitted a bid and has been allocated £301,162. MOPAC received the grant on behalf of the London Borough of Barnet and will allocate the funds to Barnet.

This decision is to accept the grant funding from the Home Office and allocate the grant to Barnet. The funding is from June 2020 to March 2021 and is for £301,162.

The Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime is recommended to:

1. Accept the grant funding of £301,162 from the Home Office.

2. Allocate the £301,162 grant funding from the Home Office received on behalf of the London Borough of Barnet to the borough.

3. Delegate authority to the MOPAC Chief Finance Officer to sign the necessary grant agreements.

1. Introduction and background

1.1 The Safer Streets Fund is a £25million funded intended to target disproportionality high areas of acquisitive crime by giving investment for situational crime prevention. Every PCC was invited to bid for a proportion of this funding, as long as the areas they selected in their bids fulfilled the criteria set by the Home Office for the Safer Streets Fund.

1.2 MOPAC identified 6 boroughs which fulfilled the criteria set by the Home Office for the Safer Streets Fund. The approach was developed in conjunction with London Councils following a Home Office briefing session delivered in January 2020 (postponed from 2019 due to the general election).

1.3 DMPC wrote to the Heads of Community Safety of the 6 boroughs and asked them to submit their applications to MOPAC. An evaluation panel reviewed the applications and chose the three strongest applications to submit for the Safer Streets Fund.

1.4 The London Borough of Barnet was the only successful application of the three submitted. Scanning by the MPS has shown that West Hendon ward in Barnet suffers from a high rate of residential burglary. Residents also expressed concern about the high rate of residential burglary, which has a negative impact in the community’s confidence in policing and partnership activity.

1.5 As part of an analysis of the problem, the MPS Designing Out Crime unit visited and surveyed the area. The attached Environmental Visual Audit shows the environmental factors that are driving crime in the area and allowing burglary to flourish. An Environmental Visual Assessment (EVA) assisted the crime analysis by confirming a range of perimeter and physical security vulnerabilities.

1.6 The fund will deliver increased physical security and perimeter treatments as per the EVA recommendation including perimeter fencing and improved home security products including alleygating, CCTV, improved street lighting and Home target hardening measures (e.g. locks, video doorbells). The key partners are Barnet local authority (Community safety, planning and enforcement), Metropolitan Police Designing Out Crime team, Master Locksmiths Association and Crimestoppers.

1.7 Each of these recommendations involves the use of products that simply require one off capital expenditure, with no additional management and maintenance costs going forward. The overall aim that each seeks to achieve is to reduce the opportunity for burglary by either creating robust perimeters or defensible space, as well as target hardening homes in the most vulnerable locations.

2. Issues for consideration

2.1 MOPAC is required to sign the grant agreement to accept this funding which sets out the conditions by which this funding is to be spent and the reporting requirements. The grant does not require match funding from MOPAC. MOPAC incorporates those requirements in the grant and contractual agreements for services that are funded from this source.

2.2 The reporting requirements for this funding include the submission of quarterly returns.

3. Financial Comments

3.1 This decision requests approval to accept Home Office funding of £301,162. It also seeks approval to allocate the full amount of the funding to the London Borough of Barnet in accordance with the grant conditions set out by the Home Office.

3.2 The grant award requests no match funding from MOPAC and there is also no indirect

MOPAC service costs built into the above grant award profile.

3.3 MOPAC’s requirement as the grant ‘distributor’ will be to review the returns and funding will only be released by MOPAC upon satisfactory review of the quarterly grant returns.

3.4 There will need to be a corresponding expenditure and income budget added to MOPAC’s 20/21 budget. The budget will sit in the Strategy Directorate.

3.5 There is no requirement for ongoing funding for this project, and there are no additional management and maintenance costs going forward. it is a one off grant by the Home Office. However the Home Office has indicated that if the Safer Streets Fund is successful, they may look into running it again in future.

4. Legal Comments

4.1. Paragraph 4.8 of the MOPAC Scheme of Delegation and Consent provides that the Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime (DMPC) has delegated authority to approve all offers of grant funding.

4.2. Paragraph 4.6 of the MOPAC Scheme of Delegation and Consent provides the DMPC authority to delegate those functions which have reserved for the DMPC.

4.3. These recommendations are in line with the MOPAC Scheme of Delegation and Consent.

5. Commercial Issues

5.1 All grants and contracts which utilise this funding will incorporate the relevant terms from the grant agreement between MOPAC and the Ministry of Justice to ensure compliance.

6. Public Health Approach

6.1 Grant award is informed by the Mayor’s public health approach to violence reduction and therefore part of MOPAC’s contribution to overall efforts led by the Violence Reduction Unit.

7. GDPR and Data Privacy

7.1 MOPAC will adhere to the Data Protection Act (DPA) 2018 and ensure that any organisations who are commissioned to do work with or on behalf of MOPAC are fully compliant with the policy and understand their GDPR responsibilities.

8. Equality Comments

8.1 MOPAC is required to comply with the public sector equality duty set out in section 149(1) of the Equality Act 2010. This requires MOPAC to have due regard to the need to eliminate discrimination, advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations by reference to people with protected characteristics. The protected characteristics are: age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation.