PCD 1004 Home Office Safer Streets – round 2

In January 2021 the Home Office launched the second round of the Safer Street Fund to fund preventive measures for acquisitive crime with a pot of £20m for PCC’s across England and Wales.

MOPAC submitted three bids on behalf of three London Boroughs which fulfilled the Home Office’s criteria for eligibility and the applications for the London Boroughs of Haringey and Hackney were successful.

As the PCC, MOPAC will receive the grants on behalf of Haringey and Hackney from the Home Office

and allocate the funds to both boroughs.

This decision is to accept the grant funding from the Home Office and allocate the funds to Haringey and Hackney. The funding is from April 2021 to March 2022 and is for £301,579 for Haringey and £424,417 for Hackney.

The Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime is recommended to:

1. Accept the grant funding of £301,579 for Haringey and £424,417 for Hackney from the Home Office.

2. Allocate the £301,579 grant funding from the Home Office received on behalf of the London Borough of Haringey to the borough.

3. Allocate the £424,417 grant funding from the Home Office received on behalf of the London Borough of Hackney to the borough.

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

1. Introduction and background

1.1 The second round of the Safer Streets Fund is a £20million 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 Using the Home Office eligibility criteria, MOPAC and the MPS identified a number of boroughs with areas that fulfil the fund criteria. Using these criteria, over 1,500 Lower Super Output Area (LSOAs) are eligible in London –approximately one in three areas, which is clearly too many. Based upon a review of the crime data and scheme requirements, MOPAC and the MPS invited Hackney, Haringey and Lambeth to submit bids. However, we also informed other boroughs that they could submit bids and we would evaluate their bids alongside the three identified boroughs. The approach was developed in conjunction with London Councils following a Home Office briefing session delivered in January 2021.

1.3 An evaluation panel reviewed the applications and chose the three strongest applications to submit for the Safer Streets Fund. These were Haringey, Hackney and Lambeth. The Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime flagged she lives in Hackney. This was noted and not considered a conflict of interest given officers had recommended this independently.

1.4 The London Boroughs of Haringey and Hackney bids were. Scanning by the MPS has shown that Noel Park Ward in Haringey and London Fields and De Beauvoir wards in Hackney suffer from a high rate of residential burglary.

1.5 As part of an analysis of the problem, the MPS Designing Out Crime unit visited and surveyed the areas. Environmental Visual Assessments (EVA) assisted the crime analysis by confirming a range of perimeter and physical security vulnerabilities.

1.6 The funds 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).

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 agreements to accept this funding which set 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 £301,579 and £424,417 respectively for the boroughs of Haringey and Hackney. It also seeks approval to allocate the full amount of the funding to the London Boroughs of Haringey and Hackney 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, although the Safer Streets Fund is an ongoing project with different rounds.

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 Home Office to ensure compliance.

6. GDPR and Data Privacy

6.1. GDPR matters have been discussed with the Data Protection Officer, who has confirmed that no Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) is required for these programmes of work. However, the personal details of any individuals or organisations with whom contact is made for the purposes of the engagement will be managed in accordance with MOPAC’s wider Privacy Notice. Any organisation that is contracted to conduct work in support of this programme will be required to sign a MOPAC contract that will specify their GDPR responsibilities.

7. Equality Comments

7.1. 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.

8. Background/supporting papers

None.