Safe City Strategic Assessment
The Southampton Safe City Partnership co-ordinates multi-agency action on community safety to improve lives and foster stronger communities by reducing crime, anti-social behaviour, alcohol misuse and supply, and the use and harm caused by drugs throughout the city. Partners include the five statutory authorities; Hampshire Constabulary, Southampton City Council, Hampshire Fire and Rescue, Probation Services and Southampton Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG). In addition, there are representatives from the Youth Offending Service (YOS), Southampton Voluntary Services (SVS) and the Integrated Commissioning Unit (ICU).
It is a legislative requirement for the Partnership to undertake a Strategic Assessment each year. This is a public document, which provides an overview of current and future crime, disorder and community safety issues affecting Southampton and makes recommendations to enable the Partnership to focus the Southampton Safe City Strategy and local delivery plans, ensuring they continue to meet the needs of the city. The Strategic Assessment includes the following:
- An analysis of the levels of crime and disorder and substance misuse in the area
- Changes in those levels and why these changes have occurred
- Views of local people living and working in the area in relation to crime and disorder and substance misuse
- Identification of gaps in knowledge which need to be addressed
- Recommendations for matters which should be prioritised
The three-year Safe City Strategy was initially due to be reviewed by April 2020. However, due to coronavirus the council and its partners had to turn focus away from reviewing the strategy and address challenges brought on by Covid-19, to ensure business continuality and efficient delivery of critical services. Therefore, the strategy was refreshed in 2021, with the 2021 strategy spanning five (rather than three) years. This will continue to be assessed every year using the findings of the annual Safe City Strategic Assessment.
In previous years, three products were delivered as part of the Strategic Assessment: a data compendium, slide set and a report, with the latter two summarising key changes. However, this year, the data compendium will be replaced with an interactive PowerBI dashboard, which will be available after the slide set and report are published. The slide set and report contribute to the overall picture of Community Safety in Southampton and therefore need to be reviewed alongside each other.