A new survey of councils around the country has found that it is taking longer to tackle incidents of anti-social behaviour, thanks to inconsistent information sharing.
The survey – commissioned by the Local Government Association and Resolve, the UK’s leading community safety charity – has found that 80% of councils agree that current information sharing practices are causing delays in their investigations. Alongside this, 94% of councils believe that the relationship between housing providers and Community Safety Partnerships should be closer in order to improve outcomes.
According to the report, one of the main issues relating to this is a lack of standard arrangements on sharing data , which causes inconsistency across council areas and agencies.
In order to overcome this issue, councils have outlined how information sharing should be standardised. Other findings from the survey include:
- 85% of councils believe that housing providers should be given full access to Community Safety Partnerships
- Around 75% of councils claimed that changing personnel within partner organisations is a barrier when sharing information
- 81% of respondents support the creation of a specialist housing court for anti-social behaviour cases
- 83% believe that victims of anti-social behaviour victims should receive national victim support
Chair of the LGA’s Safer and Stronger Communities Board, Cllr Heather Kidd, said:
Tackling Anti-Social Behaviour is a key priority not just for government, councils and the police, but our residents too – this survey shows very clearly what councils want and need to be more effective in tackling ASB.
“Often residents will first report incidents of ASB to their housing provider. Councils want this information more consistently shared with councils and the police so proportionate action can be taken. It does not help residents if we see a delay in taking action due to poor information sharing and duplicate reports to partner agencies that should be working together.
“We urge the Government to learn from this survey as councils are an integral partner to meeting its ambitions to tackle ASB.”
In response to the survey, the Local Government Association, alongside Resolve, are asking the government to standardise ASB information sharing and bring housing providers closer to CSPs. This should improve intervention outcomes when it comes to anti-social behaviour.
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