Guidance

Safer Streets Fund 2021 to 2022 prospectus (accessible version)

Updated 12 January 2022

January 2021

1. Foreword

Minister of Crime, Policing and the Fire Service

As Minister for Crime and Policing, I am committed to ensuring that our citizens can live comfortably in the knowledge that their communities and stress are safer and free of crime.

When the Safer Streets Fund first launched in January 2020, I shared my determination for taking every opportunity to prevent acquisitive and neighbourhood crimes, such as burglary, robbery, and vehicle crime, from occurring. Acquisitive crimes make up over 60% of all crimes (excluding fraud and computer misuse), using significant sums of valuable police time to investigate whilst having a deeply upsetting and invasive impact on the numerous individuals who are affected.

Through the considerable hard work of all those involved, I am confident that we have taken positive steps towards delivering safer streets for the communities worst affected by neighbourhood crime. I am hugely grateful for the commitment shown by forces and local partners to deliver an impressive portfolio of preventative interventions, and remain determined to build on these efforts in future years to deliver a real world impact to the public.

I am, therefore, delighted to launch a second round of the Safer Streets Fund, continuing our manifesto commitment to safeguard the areas that are persistently and disproportionately blighted by neighbourhood crime.

The fund will allow police and crime commissioners and local authorities to invest in well evidenced preventative measures in even more new areas, ranging from disparate rural communities to the hubbub of city centres and commercial zones. I hope through this funding we can continue to build on the fantastic work carried out to date, and further demonstrate just how much of a difference can be made when partners come together to invest in prevention.

I encourage you to apply and wish you the very best with your bid.

Kit Malthouse MP
Minister for Crime Policing and the Fire Service

2. Introduction and background

2.1. The first duty of the government is to protect the public and keep people safe. As a result, the Prime Minister and his Crime and Justice Taskforce (CJTF) have made clear that combatting neighbourhood crime is a political priority, focusing on the 4 crime types of:

• burglary
• robbery
• theft from the person
• vehicle related theft

These crimes can have devastating impacts on the livelihoods and safety of individuals and communities, alongside the significant social and economic costs. As acquisitive crimes make up approximately 61% of all crime (excluding fraud and computer misuse)^{[footnote 1]}, achieving reductions across these crime types will make a significant impact on overall crime trends, reducing pressure on policing and the criminal justice system and restoring public confidence in these institutions.

2.2. Currently, overall levels of crime in England and Wales are considerably lower than when they were at their peak in the mid-1990s. However, following a long, downwards trend in the number of neighbourhood crimes, this has started to change. Whilst the most recent data shows emerging positive progress (neighbourhood crime down 10% year ending December 2019) the statistically significant trend over the past 3 years shows a 4% increase in neighbourhood crimes ^{[footnote 2]}. Furthermore, Home Office analysis has highlighted that acquisitive crimes are not randomly distributed, but persistently and disproportionately concentrated in certain communities. The top 5% of areas, for example, accounted for nearly a quarter (24%) of all neighbourhood crime in 2018/19 ^{[footnote 3]}.

2.3. While the COVID-19 pandemic has contributed to a substantial reduction in neighbourhood crimes, we expect crime to increase to pre-pandemic levels once life returns to normal, with early indicators suggesting some bounce back since sharp falls in April. It remains unclear how the most recent introduction of government restrictions will affect future crime trends, making it of paramount importance to deliver and invest in the most robust and best evidenced solutions for preventing neighbourhood crime.

2.4. The 20/21 Safer Streets Fund was introduced as a manifesto commitment designed to deliver exactly this kind of well evidenced crime prevention activity. The fund has provided funding to 35 PCCs to invest in a range physical situational crime prevention measures, such as alleygating, CCTV, street lighting and home security, across 52 high crime areas in England and Wales. There is strong evidence to suggest that neighbourhood crimes can be prevented through these interventions, which either remove opportunities to commit crime or act as a deterrent by increasing the chances of an offender being caught ^{[footnote 4]}.

2.5. This second, £20 million round of the Safer Streets Fund aims to build upon the momentum instilled by the first round of funding, offering PCCs and local authorities the opportunity to invest in new hotspot areas. This second round will maintain a number of the core characteristics of the fund that have made it a success to date, whilst making minor strategic changes to best address the feedback and lessons learned through the fund’s delivery.

These changes include:

• focusing the fund onto the 4 neighbourhood crime types (burglary, robbery, theft from the person, vehicle crime)
• allowing investment into commercial and non-residential areas
• increasing flexibility on the defined geography of eligible areas
• allowing local authority led bids

Each of these adjustments will be expanded upon in the following prospectus.

3. About the Safer Streets Fund – round 2

3.1. Round 2 of the Safer Streets Fund is a second £20 million fund, available to PCCs and local authorities in England and Wales in 2021/22.

Bidders are asked to work with partners to design and deliver local crime prevention plans in hotspot areas with the outcome of reducing neighbourhood crimes through situational prevention.

The objectives of the fund are to:

• reduce neighbourhood crime (burglary, vehicle related theft, theft from the person, robbery) in areas that receive funding – making local areas safer and reducing demand on the police to focus on higher harm crimes

• continue to build evidence about the impact of targeted investment in situational prevention in high crime areas to strengthen the case for future investment, both at a local and national level

• grow local capability to undertake data driven problem solving and capture evidence and practical learning about how best to implement situational interventions to prevent crime

Bidder eligibility

3.2. Following feedback from the first round of the Safer Streets Fund, we have decided to extend eligibility for the Safer Streets Fund to enable local authorities to lead bids. This is to acknowledge the important role local authorities play in community safety and crime prevention and that in many cases delivery of bids will be led by local authorities.

Any bid led by a local authority will require the endorsement and written sign off from the relevant local PCC. Whilst this is only required of local authority led bids, we would expect all bids to be made in partnership. Suggestions on how best to select lead bidders and develop bids in partnership is included in Annex C.

3.3. To avoid duplication and ensure coordination of funding applications locally, the overall limit on numbers of bids will apply across a PCC area, regardless of who is leading individual funding bids. Therefore, each PCC area is able to submit up to 3 prioritised bids, each for a defined local area (or ‘hotspot’) within their PCC geography that is persistently and disproportionately affected by neighbourhood crime. PCCs will have the final verdict on the prioritisation of these bids. Up to £432,000 grant funding will be available per successful bid.

An example of how this might look:

The Merseyside PCC area has submitted all 3 of its eligible bids, 2 of these bids are led by the PCC, and one is led by the local authority. Merseyside PCC has decided to allocate the local authority led proposal as the primary bid, and the PCC proposals as secondary and tertiary bids.

3.4. Bids will be evaluated by the Home Office and will be expected to meet a defined pass mark of 60, which relates to providing satisfactory information against questions.

The funding allocation process has been designed to maximise the opportunity for each PCC area (regardless of lead bidder) to be successful for at least one bid, providing they meet the required standard. This will be done by allocating funding to first priority bids from all PCC areas before moving onto secondary bids and finally tertiary bids.

Further information on the application form and questions is included in Annex B, with further information on the assessment and scoring of bids available in the Instructions to Bidders document, available on the Jaggaer e-sourcing system. We suggest bidders focus on their primary bids, developing secondary and tertiary bids if they deem there to be sufficient rationale for further investment.

3.5. To support bidders and local partners in developing their proposals, the College of Policing have redeveloped the Safer Streets Fund toolkit, which has been updated for this year’s fund. This document brings together a wide range of information and resources that will support areas to develop their bids.

Selecting an eligible area

3.6. In selecting a target area, PCCs should ensure they meet the eligibility criteria for funding.

The key criteria are:

• i. that areas have a defined, but not necessarily adjoined geography

• ii. that the intervention area is a suitable size to enable effective targeting

• iii. that the areas are persistently and disproportionately affected by one or more neighbourhood crime types (further details on the eligibility criteria can be found below and a worked example is in Annex B)

3.7. Hotspot areas that received funding through the first round of the Safer Streets Fund will not be eligible for further investment in the second round - proposals must invest in new areas, regardless of the lead bidder. These criteria have been set to ensure the Safer Streets Fund meets its objectives, whilst allowing for sufficient flexibility to achieve maximum value for money.

3.8. The initial compliance section of the application questions will assess that proposed areas meet overall eligibility for funding. The eligibility criteria should provide PCCs with a subset of eligible areas that they can then choose from.

In selecting which specific areas to bid for, PCCs are encouraged to take a data-driven problem-solving approach to select the areas where this funding will have the greatest impact, as well considering feasibility of delivery within the funding timescale. The scanning and analysis question in the application provides bidders with the opportunity to qualify why they have chosen their proposed areas and outline the problems they are targeting in more detail. The Safer Streets toolkit contain useful information and resources that can assist bidders in doing this.

Further detail on eligibility criteria

i. Defined geography

3.9. All selected areas should have a clearly defined geography. This does not require all areas in a bid to be coterminous; for this year of the fund we will accept bids that cover areas that are not geographically adjoined, provided there is a clear rationale for why they are being combined under a single bid. For example, if a lead bidder wanted to make a single bid that covers more than one small, disparate rural communities that are blighted by the same neighbourhood crime problem (such as vehicle theft), and too far apart to draw a ‘single defined boundary around them, they would be able to do so, if:

• there is a thematic link between the areas that would suit combination under a single bid (such as multiple small areas suffering the same crime type)
• the average crime rates across all of the areas meet one of the requisite analytical benchmarks - see Annex A and sections 3.13 to 3.16
• the combined population of the areas meets the requisite definitions provided in section 3.11, or the bidder provides ample rationale as to why investment outside of the target population range is acceptable as per section 3.12

3.10. The below gives examples of acceptable interpretations of this requirement. Despite the increased flexibility, we expect that the majority of bids will focus on coterminous Lower Super Output Areas (LSOA). In order to keep consistency between areas we ask where possible that bidders use LSOAs as the basis of their selected geography.

We understand, however, that this may not always reflect the realities on the ground – for example, where a locally recognised area crosses multiple LSOA boundaries.

Where this is the case, we ask bidders to provide a map clearly defining geographical boundaries as well as providing the LSOAs it covers. If bidders are covering numerous smaller hot spots across a bid, they may wish to express the areas covered in terms of Output Areas (OAs).

Eligible:

• a plan covering a single geographical area made up of one of more co-terminus LSOAs
• a plan covering, more than one small, non-coterminous rural communities, spread across a police force area facing similar acquisitive crime problems. Clear rationale for the thematic link is provided in the application
• a plan covering a small number of robbery hot spots across a single town centre

Ineligible:

• a plan with numerous untargeted investments across multiple areas across a police force (such as replacing CCTV provision across a police force, rather than targeted hotspots)
• a plan proposing a force-wide operation that covers the entire force area

What is an LSOA?

LSOAs (Lower Super Output Areas) are a geographical hierarchy originally designed to improve the reporting of small area statistics in England and Wales. LSOAs are built from groups of contiguous Output Areas and have been automatically generated to be as consistent in population size as possible. There are 34,753 LSOAs in England and Wales, which have between 1,000 and 3,000 residents or 400 and 1,200 households. Further details on census geography (including LSOAs) are available via the ONS. To assist bidders in breaking down their existing data by LSOA we have provided LSOA look up tables on the e-sourcing portal.

ii. Targeted population

3.11. The aim of the Safer Streets Fund is to provide concentrated investment into ‘hotspot’ areas. PCCs should choose a population size that is sufficiently targeted to enable them to make a significant impact on neighbourhood crime within their selected area, whilst still being a sufficient size to justify the amount of funding that is bid for. To achieve this, we suggest that areas should generally be between 500 and 3,500 households (or 1,000 to 9,000 residents), which corresponds approximately to between one and three LSOAs ^{[footnote 5]}.

3.12. However, this is not a formal eligibility criterion and a bidder can select areas outside of this range - to do so their application should demonstrate that they can effectively target their population to make a significant impact on crime and the amount of funding requested is proportionate to need. This includes investing in commercial or retail areas with low relative populations. Bidders will not be at a disadvantage for selecting outside of the suggested range so long as they demonstrate the rationale for doing so.

iii. Disproportionate and persistently high crime rate for one or more neighbourhood crime type

3.13. This year’s Safer Streets Fund has a more targeted focus on 4 neighbourhood crime types, rather than all acquisitive crime. These are:

• domestic burglary
• vehicle theft (theft of and from vehicles)
• theft from the person
• robbery

Bidders may choose to undertake a plan that covers all 4 neighbourhood crime types, or they may choose to primarily focus on one crime type in particular, for example specific interventions targeting a robbery hotspot in a city centre.

3.14. Bidders must demonstrate that their chosen area is persistently and disproportionately affected by the neighbourhood crimes they are targeting in their plan. For the purposes of this exercise, we have set a range of crime rate benchmarks for all neighbourhood crime as well as individual benchmarks for burglary, vehicle theft, and robbery.

There is no benchmark focused solely on theft from the person. This is because the average crimes per 1,000 population per year for theft from the person (using police.uk data) is too low to provide a benchmark that ensures only hotspot areas are selected. If bidders wish to develop a plan focused solely on theft from the person, the area in question will need to meet the all neighbourhood crime benchmark rate.

3.15. These benchmarks are based on analysis of the upper quartile of LSOAs for acquisitive crime using police.uk data over the past 3 years (with a tolerance applied). PCCs must demonstrate that the average crime rate over the past 3 years for their chosen crime type(s) meets one of these benchmarks in order to be eligible to receive funding. Where PCCs choose to target multiple areas that are not co-terminus they must demonstrate that the levels of crime (in each area/on average across areas) meet the crime benchmark. Further details on this analysis are available in Annex A. An example of how an area can demonstrate they meet the crime benchmark (and overall eligibility criteria) is in Annex B.

3.16. These benchmarks are intended to indicate a minimum level of crime that areas must meet to be eligible, but in practice we expect in many cases the areas PCCs select will have significantly higher crime rates. Forces are encouraged to use the scanning and analysis section of the application form to build a more in-depth picture of why they have selected their area and the problems facing it (such as moving beyond the high level police.uk categories).

Crime type	Benchmark crime rate using police.uk data (crimes per 1,000 population per year)
All neighbourhood crime (burglary, robbery, theft from the person and vehicle crime)	18.30
Vehicle crime	8.74
Burglary	7.91
Robbery	1.16

iv. Plans targeting commercial areas

3.17. This year we have removed the requirement that areas must be ‘predominantly residential’. This reflects the fact that this year’s fund is particularly intended to target 4 key neighbourhood crime types, many of which are likely to take place in areas that are not residential (robbery and theft from the person are most commonly found in commercial areas). This also reflects consideration of feedback from the first round of Safer Streets funding, where many PCCs made clear that their priorities in tackling acquisitive crime lay in town and city centres.

3.18. Bidders investing in commercial zones are encouraged where possible to engage with Business Improvement Districts (BIDs), Business Crime Reduction Partnerships (BCRPs), and other key commercial group stakeholders to ensure the development of considered and supported plans. These groups will provide key insights into lacking or necessary situational prevention resource that will be invaluable in developing effective solutions in commercial areas. Bids that benefit multiple business or groups of businesses are encouraged.

3.19. Whilst commercial areas are now eligible for investment, the primary outcome of the Safer Streets Fund remains to make the public safer. Where bidders do choose to undertake plans in commercial areas, it is important they ensure that funding is not used for activity that should and could be undertaken by a single commercial or private entity, unless significant resulting public benefit can be demonstrated.

Where there is an obvious commercial benefit to a single commercial entity, we would strongly expect there to be a significant (50%) matched funding contribution from the benefiter to be provided, in addition to the 20% mandated matched requirement from the bidder. Whilst strongly expected, commercial matching is not mandated -bidders can use their discretion with the provision of corresponding rationale to their decision.

3.20. Acceptable examples of how your plan might acceptably target commercial areas are listed (but not limited to) below:

• a plan that introduces a Park Mark scheme to a major commercial car park, aiming to prevent a high volume of vehicle crimes in a town centre
• a plan that targets improved surveillance near a high footfall privately owned shopping complex, aiming to prevent robbery and theft from the person crimes. Because the plan benefits the private ownership of the complex it is expected that said organisation provides significant matched funding contribution to extending surveillance improvements
• a plan that targets theft from the person and robbery at a major rail hub

What we will fund

3.21. The purpose of the Safer Streets Fund is to invest in the delivery of place-based crime prevention plans, which deliver the outcome of reduced acquisitive crime through situational crime prevention.

Situational prevention includes opportunity-reducing measures that:

• i. are directed at highly specific forms of crime

• ii. involve the management, design or manipulation of the immediate environment in as systematic and permanent way as possible

• iii. make crime more difficult, risky, or less rewarding and excusable as judged by a wide range of offenders ^{[footnote 6]}

3.22. In practice this can mean a range of interventions, for instance those that reduce opportunities for crime (for example, better home security or crime prevention advice to residents) or those that increase the chance of getting caught (like street lighting).

3.23. The Safer Streets Fund toolkit provides information on a wide range of situational interventions, including information on the evidence base, as well as delivery and sustainability considerations. The list of interventions provided in the toolkit is not intended to be exhaustive, and we are open to other interventions where it is clear they target the criminal setting and are not listed in the exclusions below.

3.24. We strongly encourage bidders to use the toolkits to select interventions that have the best evidence base for the problems they are targeting. This is particularly the case with burglary plans where there is a strong evidence to suggest the effectiveness of certain interventions (for example, target hardening that meets WIDE specification), over other interventions that are less well evidenced (such as property marking).

For other crimes types, such as vehicle crime and robbery, we appreciate there has been less evaluation of the effectiveness of interventions and so in these cases there may be a greater rationale for selecting less well evidenced interventions.

Whilst we encourage PCCs to choose interventions with a proven evidence base where possible, our primary concern is that there is a strong rationale that chosen interventions will target the issues identified in the problem analysis. When developing plans, bidders should also ensure that they give due regard to the Public Sector Equality Duty.

Eligible expenditure

i. Infrastructure and other physical interventions

3.25. We expect the majority of Safer Streets funding to be spent on capital purchases, including infrastructure and other one-off physical interventions. Funding can be used both for the interventions themselves and the costs associated with purchasing and installing them, including (but not limited to) legal advice, contacting residents to arrange installations and installation costs.

Funding may be used on maintenance contracts for physical interventions that last beyond the funding period, as long as the contract offers value for money and all invoices can be submitted for the final payment deadline as all spend must be concluded by 31 March 2022. We recommend that areas undertake an Environmental Visual Audit (EVA) to understand which changes will be most appropriate for their area. Police Crime Prevention Initiatives have offered training to Designing Out Crime Officers in every PCC area to support areas to do this.

3.26. Where bidders choose physical interventions that require ongoing monitoring (like CCTV), it is important that areas have commitment from partners for continued monitoring. This will be assessed through the sustainability question as part of the application process.

ii. Other situational crime prevention interventions

3.27. Whilst the primary purpose of funding is for changes to the built environment, bidders may also wish to look at other forms of crime prevention that are situational, such as publicity measures or community wardens. Bidders should note that Safer Streets funding is only available until 31 March 2022, and so funding for these types of interventions should either be focused on start-up costs (for example, training and recruitment of community wardens or crime prevention advisors) or there should be a long term plan for funding this activity afterwards (i.e. a written commitment from the proposed funder as part of the application). Sustainability will be assessed through the application.

3.28. In round one of the fund many areas chose to bid for interventions that would improve the general image of an area, such as litter collections and graffiti removal. Whilst the Safer Streets toolkit acknowledges there is some limited evidence for image management interventions, this should form one part of wider crime prevention activity within an area. We would not expect to see this form a majority proportion (over 50%) of the expenditure of a successful bid into the second round of the fund.

iii. Community building and engagement

3.29. The acceptance, buy-in and engagement of communities in the interventions undertaken is a critical factor contributing to the outcomes of the fund and we also encourage bids to include community focused elements.

This could include, but is not limited to:

• funding the training, support and mentoring of a community organiser or community group/local organisation to work with a community to undertake and organise action on local priorities
• funding for community groups to undertake crime prevention activity (for example, engagement events, distributing crime prevention advice, and more)
• funding to increase community support for physical changes in an area – for example, community garden in a park that has had increased security installed

3.30. Again, bidders should be mindful that sustainability will be an area of bid evaluation, and they will need to demonstrate the sustainability of investment in community organisations as Safer Streets grant funding is available until 31 March 2022.

iv. Administration costs

3.31. We acknowledge that the success of local plans depends on the quality of implementation. As a result, we encourage bidders to only use up to 7% of the grant funding award value to fund indirect administration costs. This can be used to fund posts to oversee implementation of the Safer Streets plan and you are required to confirm the percentage of your overall budget as part of your bid.

Safer Streets funding should also not be used to replace funding for existing posts or activity. Should you choose to recruit for posts to support delivery of the objectives of the Grants, bidders should note the SSF is for financial year 2021/22 only and any future risks beyond the funding period is borne by them.

3.32. Bidders are also able to use as much of their mandated 20% matched contribution for indirect administration costs as they see as necessary, provided this still represents value for money. Bidders who choose to use matched resource to fund indirect administration costs will still be able to designate up to 7% of their grant funding award towards indirect administration, as well.

3.33. If a post is being used directly for the purposes of delivering an intervention (for example, undertaking environmental assessments to allow for installations or delivering crime prevention advice) then it would not be classified as an indirect cost and would not be subject to the 7% target figure. Bids must contain a breakdown of proposed interventions as part of the budget toolkit.

Matched resources

3.34. This year, lead bidders are mandated to identify a matched resource contribution of 20% of the total of their bid. For example, if a bidder identifies the total cost of their project equals £300,000, they will need to provide the equivalent of £60,000 in matched funding, receiving £240,000 in grant funding.

3.35. This contribution can take a range of forms, including:

• a financial/cash contribution
• staff time
• volunteer time
• as part of the commitment to maintain interventions in future years

Bidders will be required as part of their budget toolkit to set out a breakdown of the matched resource that will be provided.

Targeting other types of crime and disorder

3.36. As part of their bid, bidders also have the opportunity to provide evidence of other types of crime and disorder that could simultaneously be helped by situational interventions, such as acquisitive offenses that are not in the 4 priority crime types like bicycle theft. Secondary impacts on offences outside of the acquisitive space can be considered.

Bidders are encouraged to consider whether proposals may have an impact on distressing or higher harm crimes, namely:

• anti-social behaviour (ASB)
• violent offences
• sexual offenses

Each of these can be targeted in Safer Streets plans as secondary crime types. For example, within last year’s funding nearly half of applicants identified that ASB was an issue in their area, which would also be tackled through their suggested acquisitive crime prevention measures.

3.37. This information should be detailed in the problem analysis section of the application form. The Safer Streets Fund toolkit provides a summary of crimes that different situational interventions can target (although this is not exhaustive), which can support bidders to define secondary crime types. Where bidders identify non acquisitive crime types as secondary targets for their plan, we expect in general they would be targeted indirectly through interventions aimed at acquisitive crime types.

Ineligible expenditure

3.38. The Safer Streets Fund Grant Agreement will contain information on ineligible expenditure that pertains to all forms of grant funding.

3.39. To ensure the fund delivers its objectives, there are certain types of crime prevention activity that cannot be funded by the Safer Streets Fund grant. However, whilst out of scope for the fund, we acknowledge that these activities can have an important role in preventing acquisitive crimes. Bidders can complement delivery of their plans with these interventions if they are funded locally and this type of activity could form part of matched resources.

This could include, but is not limited to:

• crime prevention interventions that are not situational in focus – such as drug treatment or early intervention activities with young people
• policing interventions – such as hot spot policing or enforcement activity
• activity that will take longer than a year to complete (unless there is funding secured for future years) – such as long-term housing regeneration
• interventions that require ongoing funding, where a future funding source has not been identified
• replacing funding for work that is already underway – although funding can be used to expand or improve existing work
• work that forms part of an existing safety, planning or legislative requirement – such as changes to doors to make them compliant with fire safety regulations

Factors to consider when developing your plan

3.40. When developing your plan we advise you to consider the following points, which will be assessed through the ‘ability to deliver’ section of the application.

i. Implementation and lead in considerations

3.41. Given the single year funding timeline, bidders are encouraged to think pragmatically when selecting areas and designing plans. For instance, they might want to choose areas where there are existing strong partnership arrangements to support delivery. Bidders should only choose interventions they are confident they can deliver.

The Safer Streets Fund toolkit contains ratings for difficulty and lead in time, and where areas pick these interventions assessors will be looking for evidence that potential implementation considerations have been considered. As per the year end timetable, we will request evidence of all spend expected to be incurred to 31 March 2022 before year end to allow for accruals to be made. Any invoices relating to spend beyond this date (including for future staff or installation costs of purchased interventions) will not be funded.

ii. Partnership working and commissioning arrangements

3.42. Bidders should take the overall lead in selecting areas and overseeing plans but are required to work closely with other relevant partners for instance their police force, local authority, Community Safety Partnership and housing association. PCCs are required to include named individuals within any partners organisation that have a role in delivery as part of their declaration within the application.

3.43. It is a decision for individual areas how they wish to organise local commissioning arrangements. The Grant Agreement for funding will be formed with whoever has lead the bid. Where partners are involved in the commissioning arrangements it is for the lead bidder to form and manage these relationships.

4. Implementing Safer Streets Plans

Support and challenge

4.1. We want to ensure that successful areas receive ongoing support during the implementation period, to maximise the impact of funding and ensure delivery of the intervention outcomes. We are currently developing a support offer to ensure that successful areas can share learning and access peer support both through events, forums and training.

During 2020/21, successful areas have had access to a host of events organised by the Problem Solving and Crime Prevention Programme including:

• regional workshops
• expert support from Police Crime Prevention Initiatives, such as the peer review programme and weekly Q&A sessions
• a training programme for Designing Out Crime Officers
• alongside additional ad hoc assistance

We will ensure areas continue to benefit from a considered and improved support programme.

4.2. In addition, every grant recipient will be allocated a Home Office lead as a single point of contact to provide support and challenge on plan delivery. Successful areas will be required to provide monitoring information (progress against milestones and spending returns as outlined in budget toolkit) every quarter to ensure they are on track to deliver their proposed plans.

COVID-19

4.3. At the point of publication for this prospectus, COVID restrictions are in place across England and Wales. Given uncertainties around both the short and long term future of the virus, bidders are encouraged to build in COVID related mitigations to any delivery proposals. This aims to ensure effective implementation or adjustment of plans through any potential future restrictions.

4.4. The Home Office will work proactively and flexibly with grant recipients to ensure delivery of Safer Streets Fund projects through any future COVID restrictions. grant recipients will be encouraged to engage with their single point of contact at the earliest moment that COVID related delivery risks arise.

Overall programme evaluation

4.3. To ensure that successfully funded crime prevention plans are evaluated in a consistent way, we will again be contracting a central evaluation partner who will work with successful areas throughout the life of the project with a view to gaining long term lessons from the Safer Streets Fund.

You will therefore be required to commit to working with the external evaluator. No specific funding will be available for the purpose of self-evaluation. However, as good practice we encourage areas to monitor and evaluate their interventions against their own priorities, both during and after the funding period to understand the impact. This forms an important part of the ‘assessment’ section of the SARA (Scanning, Analysis, Response, Assessment) problem solving process.

4.4. The programme evaluation will look at both the impact of funding on crime and perceptions of crime within areas, and factors influencing whether implementation was successful. Through this evaluation we intend to build a bank of resources that will both support the case for investment in situational prevention and provide practical support and examples for areas in how to do this.

4.5. As part of the evaluation, the evaluator may select a representative sample of areas to undertake surveys, such as a residents’ survey (as has been conducted in 2020/21). This would likely also include interviews with PCC and local authority leads (as has been conducted in 2020/21). Areas will be required to participate in these surveys if selected. For the impact evaluation, the evaluator will assess the impact of funded plans during the funding period.

We also intend to look at multi-year impact of funding to grow the evidence on longevity of impact, which will use multi-year geotagged data. As part of the Annual Data Return (ADR) police forces in England and Wales are mandated to submit to the Home Office Data Hub (HODH) all recorded crime with geo-location crime data, covering British National Grid (6 or 7 figure) ‘X’ and ‘Y’ coordinates of individual crime records. By bidding for funding, you are committing to ensuring such data returns are complete and accurate. This will ensure that we are able to evaluate funding to the fullest possible effect.

4.6. At the end of the programme, we will publish and disseminate a full evaluation report aiming to share findings of best practice. Outputs will be designed in a practical way to best support future commissioning and government investment.

5. Timetable

Indicative timeline:

• 4 to 9 January - second round
• 28 January 2021 - virtual launch event, fund launched and prospectus published
• 29 January 2021 - applications open for registration
• 28 February 2021 - clarification window closes
• 25 March 2021 - application deadline
• 26 March 2021 - PCC pre-election period begins^{[footnote 7]}
• April 2021 - evaluation panel score bids
• May 2021 - successful areas announced
• 31 March 2022 - funding ends

6. Annex A – analytical background on crime benchmarks

Data

6.1. Publicly available data from police.uk has been used to calculate the crime benchmarks. Each month, police forces upload a Crime and ASB file and a Police Outcomes file to a Home Office managed server. These files are quality assured and anonymised before being published to the site. Data for individual crimes, the month they occurred in and the Lower Layer Super Output Area (LSOA) they took place, across all police force areas in England and Wales, is then available for download.

6.2. We have used police.uk data as it is currently the best available data source to demonstrate local concentrations of acquisitive crime. However, areas should be aware that there are a number of known issues with police.uk data quality. Moreover, the crime categories on police.uk are relatively broad and cannot be broken down. In practice, this means areas may be using a broader data category to show they pass the benchmark than is targeted in their plan. For example, the police.uk burglary category includes both residential and non-residential burglary. To pass the benchmark for a residential burglary focused plan, areas must demonstrate they pass using the broader police.uk burglary definition, even if they do not intend to target non-residential burglary.

Methodology

Step 1: calculating crime rates

6.3. Police.uk provides data on the number of crimes in each of the 34,753 Lower Layer Super Output Area (LSOA) in England and Wales. Neighbourhood crime rates for 2016/17, 2017/18 and 2018/19 are calculated by:

• summing the following Police.uk crime categories for each LSOA:

  • burglary
  • robbery
  • theft from the person
  • vehicle crime

This gives the neighbourhood crime count per LSOA

• dividing the resulting count of neighbourhood crime for each LSOA by the corresponding ONS mid-year population estimates (for years 2017, 2018 and 2019)

6.4. Burglary, Robbery, and Vehicle crime rates for LSOAs are calculated by dividing the count of offences by the corresponding population estimate for that LSOA and year.

Step 2: creating a national benchmark

6.5. This fund aims to support both commercial and residential areas, and bidders are permitted to submit proposals in both areas. However, in order to set a benchmark crime rate unbiased towards commercial areas (which often have inflated crime rates due to low residential population), the benchmark was set after excluding high footfall areas. This analysis uses 2011 Census data (the latest available) to compare the workday population to the resident population of each LSOA. City centres and shopping districts are expected to have a relatively higher workday than resident population.

6.6. Any LSOA that has a workday population that is greater than the resident population is excluded from the analysis to set the benchmarks. In practice this removes 2,948 LSOAs from the analysis which is about 8% of the total.

6.7. Whilst they have been excluded in order to set the benchmark, bidders are still allowed to submit bids for commercial areas. As the benchmark rate is lower due to the exclusion of commercial areas from the calculation, this will not affect commercial area eligibility.

6.8. The crime rates of the remaining 31,805 LSOAs are used to produce the benchmark. The benchmark is calculated as the upper quartile (25%) crime rate across all remaining LSOAs for each of the years 2017/18, 2018/19 and 2019/20.

A national benchmark is calculated for neighbourhood crime, and individual benchmarks for 3 of its components of burglary, robbery, and vehicle crime rates. This is then averaged to provide a single number as can be seen in table one:

Table one: National 75th percentile acquisitive crimes per 1,000 people

Note: figures have been rounded to 2 decimal places

	2017/18	2018/19	2019/20	Average
Neighbourhood crime	20.29	19.84	17.67	19.27
Vehicle crime	9.48	9.43	8.70	9.20
Burglary	9.07	8.60	7.33	8.33
Robbery	1.19	1.27	1.20	1.22

6.8. The averaged rate is calculated to be approximately 19 neighbourhood crimes per 1,000 people per year. For burglaries the averaged rate is calculated to be 8 burglaries per 1,000 people per year.

6.9. To account for known issues with data quality, a tolerance is then applied to each of the benchmarks to reduce them by 5%. This gives a benchmark of 18.3 crimes per 1,000 people per year for all neighbourhood crime. It gives a benchmark of 7.91 crimes per 1,000 people per year for burglary, 1.16 per 1,000 people per year for robbery, and 8.74 for Vehicle crimes. To pass the benchmark, an area must meet this rate on average over the 3 financial years.

Table 2: National benchmarks with 5% tolerance applied

Note: figures have been rounded to 2 decimal places

	Benchmark	5% Tolerance
Neighbourhood crime	19.27	18.30
Vehicle crime	9.20	8.74
Burglary	8.33	7.91
Robbery	1.22	1.16

7.0. Forces are required to use their own data to demonstrate how their target area meets any of the benchmarks. However, PCCs can request the list of LSOAs in their police force area that meet any of the crime benchmark by emailing [email protected]. They should only be used as a starting point for identifying suitable areas and forces should primary rely on their own data when developing bids.

7. Annex B – information on assessment questions

7.1. The Safer Streets application will be available via the Jaggaer e-sourcing system (further information available in Instructions to Bidders). The questions will be divided into 5 sections:

• part a: compliance questions – this will include a number of questions around area eligibility as well as commercial compliance questions
• part b: financial and organisational capability – these questions are designed to provide assurance on financial and organisational aspects of your bid
• part c: technical capability and capacity – this is the section where bidders will be asked to outline their plan
• part d: this section includes declarations – including agreement from all partners involved in the delivery of your plan

7.2. There are 3 additional attachments that areas may also submit alongside their responses to the questions above.

• a map of the target area, clearly outlining the geographical boundaries if the area is not encompassed by one or more Lower Super Output Areas
• an Environmental Visual Audit (EVA) of your targeted area, this is not mandatory but will help the assessment panel to understand visually the changes you are proposing in your plan and how they meet the needs of the individual area. A template that areas can use, has been provided by Police Crime Prevention Initiatives and is available on the e-sourcing system

7.3. To support areas in developing their plans we have provided further information on Part A and Part C.

The exemplar area (Ripleton) is fictional, as are the accompanying statistics.

Part A: Initial eligibility questions

7.4. Part A includes initial screening questions to ensure that areas meet the eligibility criteria of the fund, which will be scored on a pass or fail basis against the criteria outlined in sections 3.1 to 3.10. The section below outlines the eligibility questions and example responses for a fictional area that would pass the initial eligibility questions.

Example of an eligible area

A11. Please confirm that your area is a defined geographical area as set out in the prospectus and give the name of this area.

Yes – Ripleton

A12. Please indicate which Lower Layer Super Output Areas (LSOAs) the intervention area covers and confirm whether the area maps directly to those LSOAs (including either the LSOA names or numbers). If not please provide a map detailing the intervention area(s).

The bid maps directly to 2 LSOAs: Ripleton 002A and Ripleton 003B

A13. Please indicate whether the selected LSOAs are coterminous (i.e. geographically adjoined) or separated.

Not coterminous - Separated

A14. Please select which type of area your plan will broadly target (Residential, Commercial, Rural, Other). You may select more than one option.

Rural and Residential

A15. Please outline the number of total households in this area.

Ripleton 002A and Ripleton 003B have an estimated 1,000 households.

A16. Please outline the total population in this area.

Estimated 2800 residents within both LSOAS.

A17. Which of the 4 Neighbourhood Crimes (Burglary, Robbery, Theft from the Person, and Vehicle Crime) will be targeted by your plan? You may select multiple should your plan target more than one.

Burglary and Vehicle Crime

A18. Which secondary crime types (including wider acquisitive crimes or other crime types, such as ASB or violence) will be impacted by your plan?

ASB and bicycle theft with also be impacted by our plan

A19. Please outline which benchmark your area meets (all neighbourhood crime or any of its components). For further information on the benchmark consult the Safer Streets Fund: Round 2 prospectus.

All neighbourhood crime benchmark

A20. Please outline how your area meets the benchmark (as an average over the previous 3 years).

Data for neighbourhood crimes (as defined in the Safer Streets prospectus) over the past 3 years are:

• 2017/18: 72 neighbourhood crimes
• 2018/19: 75 neighbourhood crimes
• 2019/20: 64 neighbourhood crimes

The average number of neighbourhood crimes per year between 2017/18 and 2019/20 was therefore 70.33. With 2,800 residents, this means that the average number of neighbourhood crimes per 1,000 residents was 25.11. Ripleton 002A and Ripleton 003B therefore passes the neighbourhood crime benchmark of 18.30 crimes per 1,000 people.

A21. Please indicate how much Safer Streets funding you are bidding for (up to £432,000) – not including matched funding.

£240,000

A22. Please confirm that you will be committing at least 20% matched funding to this bid.

Yes

A23. Please indicate exactly how much matched funding you will be providing, and whether this will be a capital or resource contribution

The equivalent of £60,000 will be contributed in resource through a mixture of officer and staff time.

Section C: Safer Streets plan questions

This section outlines the primary questions that you will need to answer to outline your plan.

1. Scanning and analysis: please describe the problem you are targeting through your plan and your analysis of the drivers of this problem (25%, 700 words maximum).

Your answer should include:

• a description of your chosen area and the neighbourhood crime type(s) you are planning to target, including an explanation of why you have chosen both the area and the specific crime types. This part of your answer can also include information on any non-neighbourhood types of crime and disorder you have identified as a secondary target

Examples of evidence you are encouraged to include are:

• data on neighbourhood crime within your area, including trends over recent years
• contextual information about how it sits within your force crime rate
• evidence of why the problem is of significant concern to the community

• an explanation of how you have involved partners, other agencies and a range of data sources in selecting your area

• analysis of the factors driving crime in your target area and an overall hypothesis about the problem

Examples of evidence you are encouraged to include are:

• analysis of previous incidents – including information about victims, offenders, method of offense, locations and times of offence
• wider demographic information about the area, including information about housing stock and other relevant information from partners – particularly the local authority
• information from residents and local community groups about local concerns
• whether your area has previously attempted to tackle this issue, and if so a critical appraisal of how this worked and how this has impacted your analysis
• you are also encouraged to undertake an Environmental Visual Audit (EVA) to assist with your response to this part of the question:

1. to enable assessors to easily understand your local area it is important that the key information from your EVA is included in your main answer
2. you may attach your completed EVA to your application however assessors should not need to refer to this to understand your bid (please note: the EVA does not form part of the word count)

2. Response: assessing rationale for action. (35% weighting)

A. Please provide an overview summary of what are you proposing to do to tackle your identified problem and the impact you expect this plan to have on Neighbourhood Crime in the area (750 words maximum).

This question is a showstopper and a minimum score of 60% is required.

Your answer should include:

• identification of the interventions you plan to deploy in response to the scanned problem, and how these interventions will address the hypothesis identified in question one

• evidence to support why your selected project deliverables and delivery approach represent value for money – the projected expenditure section of your budget toolkit will form part of the assessment for this part of the question

• an estimate of the number of neighbourhood crimes you think your plan will prevent per year, broken down by offence type. This should be based on the number of crimes in your area you are targeting and evidence from the Safer Streets toolkit about expected impact of the interventions you have chosen

• any other benefits you think your plan may have either on secondary non neighbourhood crime types (like anti-social behaviour) or broader non crime benefits (such as community cohesion or local economic growth). You can also include here any potential unintended negative impacts of your plan (for example, around fear of crime) and how you will manage them

B. Please complete the below Response Proposal template detailing each of the deliverables and their rationale in you proposed plan.

If your bid is successful, the submitted version of the Response Proposal template will be inserted into your Safer Streets Fund Grant Agreement and used to track progress over the course of the fund. An exemplar line has been included in the template to provide some guidance, please remove this for final submission.

This template should include:

• each intervention you propose delivering as part of your plan, including specific totals on how many of each intervention you plan to deploy for each deliverable, for example, 10 alley gates to be installed, 400 homes to be target hardened
• the total cost of delivering the entirety of each deliverable, accompanied by an indication of how this figure has been reached, such as via a quote from a local provider
• the rationale behind the selection of each deliverable in this hotspot area, coupled with the evidence that suggests the intervention will work. if you wish to utilise evidence found within the Safer Streets Fund toolkit, you must identify why that evidence is specifically relevant to this situation

Deliverable

Example: Installation of 10 CCTV cameras

Total cost (highlight where funding is offered as matched funding)

£40,000 (quote from CCTV supplier)

Evidence/rationale

EVA shows the hot spot locations for acquisitive crime where cameras will be installed. The hot spot locations all suffer with high levels of acquisitive crime. The cameras will act as a deterrent to offenders and will provide evidence and intelligence to the police.

3. Delivery: ensuring the proposed activity can be delivered in the requisite timeframe (25% weighting).

A. Please provide an overview summary of how you propose to deliver this response within the proposed timeframe (maximum 500 words).

This question is a showstopper and a minimum score of 60% is required. Your answer should include:

• please provide an overview of how you plan to deliver your proposal in full by 31 March 2022, including the processes and governance you have in place to ensure both full delivery and value for money are achieved
• provide a summary of partnership arrangements for the delivery of the plans including any formal legal, decision making or financial agreements. Please note sign off for all partners involved in delivery of the funding is required as part of the declaration section
• where delivery relies on a partner organisation, please provide evidence of how you will ensure your partner is able to deliver, including any evidence of existing working relationship on similar projects
• reference to how you will ensure that you have the relevant expertise in place to deliver, either internally or via partnership arrangements
• please consider COVID-19 related mitigations within this summary

B. Please complete the below deliverability template detailing how you plan to deliver each individual deliverable within the recommended timeframe.

If your bid is successful, the submitted version of the Delivery template will be inserted into your Safer Streets Fund Grant Agreement and used to track progress over the course of the fund. An exemplar line has been included in the template to provide some guidance, please remove this for final submission. This template should include:

• a description of how you will deliver each deliverable in the proposed timeframe. A clear description of roles and responsibilities of all parties that are involved. Within this, we would expect to see (where relevant):
  • a summary of partnership arrangements for the delivery of each deliverable, as well as the governance procedures you will put in place to ensure delivery internally and across different partnership groups
  • notation of the milestones you will have to hit to ensure you deliver this project before the end of the funded period (milestones will be requested in greater detail in your budget toolkit – please utilise the example as a guide on the level of detail required for this template)
  • your assessment of the main risks to delivery (including where delivery is dependent on external factors – like planning permission) –and any mitigating actions and contingency plans you will put in place to ensure the project runs as outlined to time and budget

Deliverable

Example: Installation of 10 CCTV cameras

Partner involvement and governance

Local authority to lead the bid with heavy PCC involvement. Shared governance board between both parties with countersigning responsibilities.

The local council will undertake the project management of the CCTV making use of existing frameworks. They will purchase, install and ensure CCTV is maintained throughout and past funding period.

Milestones

Begin formal procurement process to select CCTV provider – 1 June 2020

Complete procurement and begin delivery with successful provider–1 August 2020

Complete full installation of 10CCTV cameras in hot spot locations – 1 November 2020

Risks and mitigations

• risk - locations identified in the EVA are no longer viable
• mitigation - alternative locations to be identified within the LSOA

4. How will you sustain the impact of your plan after the funding period has ended? (15% weighting)

A. Please provide an overview summary of how you will sustain the impact of your plan after the funding period has ended (maximum 400 words).

This question is a showstopper and minimum score of 60% is required. Your answer should include:

• an outline of your plans to ensure your programme is sustainable after the funding period has finished (31 March 2022)
• how long you expect investments in the physical environmental to be effective for and continue to deliver impacts against neighbourhood crimes beyond the funded period
• how you plan to maintain interventions beyond the end of the funding period (21/22) – including, where this cost will fall to a partner, agreement that they are committed to doing this
• how you will continue to engage residents and community groups after the funding period has ended

B. Please complete the below Sustainability template detailing how you plan to ensure sustainable impact of your proposal beyond the funded period.

If your bid is successful, the submitted version of the Delivery template will be inserted into your Safer Streets Fund Grant Agreement and used to track progress over the course of the fund. An exemplar line has been included in the template to provide some guidance, please remove this for final submission. This template should include:

• the identification of the ongoing costs (if any) to each deliverable/ intervention proposed in your bid
• an indication of how these costs will be met and how the intervention will be maintained beyond the funded period, including identifying any partnership agreements
• information on how you expect each deliverable to deliver impact beyond the funded period

Deliverable

Example: Installation of 10 CCTV cameras

Identify any ongoing costs beyond funded period

£15,000 – 5 years maintenance costs

How will these costs be met and the intervention maintained beyond the funded period? Partner agreements should be identified.

Costs will be met through the SSF funding and allocated to the local council. The local council will maintain and monitor the cameras for 5 years.

How this will deliver impact beyond funded period

The hot spot locations will continue to benefit from the cameras, this will continue to reduce crime in these locations and help the community feel safer. This will continue beyond the funded period.

8. Annex C – process for completing application

Scanning

Application process	Who	Tools
1. Commission force / partner analysts to review crime data, developing a shortlist of eligible areas that meet the SSF benchmark criteria for neighbourhood crime.	Leader bidder (PCC or local authority) alongside force and partner analysts	Review SSF prospectus, request benchmark analysis data and submit clarifications via bidding portal.
2. Convene local partners to explore which eligible areas can be best impacted by SSF interventions. The target area is chosen.	Convene PCC, local authority, police force and other partners	Roundtable meetings and reference groups

Analysis

Application process	Who	Tools
3. Undertake analysis of the drivers of crime in the identified area, looking at crime, demographic data and community and partner feedback. Provide this information to DOCO.	Lead bidder, local force and partner analysts	Reviewing case files, neighbourhood officer intelligence and local authority data.
4. DOCO carries out the EVA and recommends interventions.	DOCO and police force liaising with lead bidder	Utilise the Safer Streets Fund toolkit to identify best evidenced interventions.
5. EVA and other information considered to decide appropriate interventions.	Lead bidder, DOCO and local partners	Utilise the Safer Streets Fund toolkit and engage partners on key decisions.

Response

Application process	Who	Tools
6. Undertake costing of plan and consider delivery and sustainability with partners. Estimate the likely impact that the selected interventions will have on selected neighbourhood crime in the identified area.	Lead bidder, finance partners and PCC/police analysts	Analysis of crime data, use of evidence base (SSF toolkit) and budget toolkit.
7. Sign off final plan with all relevant partners.	All delivery partners	Completion of shared actions and approval to proceed from partners.
8. Submit final bid.	Lead bidder	Jaeggar e-sourcing platform

1. According to the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) to December 2019 ↩

2. According to the CSEW to December 2019 ↩

3. Internal Home Office analysis of Police.uk data at LSOA ↩

4. Welsh. B. & Farrington, D. (2008). Effects of Improved Street Lighting on Crime

   Piza, E. et al. (2019). CCTV surveillance for crime prevention. A 40-year systematic review with meta-analysis,

   Sidebottom, Armitage and Tompson. (2017). Reducing Crime through Secured by Design: A Systematic Review ↩

5. Where an area targets more than one LSOA through their plan these should be adjacent to one another. ↩

6. Source: Clarke, R. (2007). Situational Crime Prevention: Successful Case Studies (2nd Ed.). New York: Harrow & Heston, pg. 4). ↩

7. Should PCC elections be for any reason delayed, we may revisit the timeline to ensure maximum time for bid development. ↩