Working in partnership has been embraced within Wakefield and it now forms the lynchpin to agency and community approaches to addressing a wide range of issues.
Nowhere is this more true than in the Safer Communities Partnership, which last year produced the Wakefield District Safer and Stronger Communities Partnership Plan for 2008-2011.
For the first time, this Plan brings together the district’s priorities into a single strategic framework in order to achieve cleaner, greener, stronger and safer communities.
As Chair, with the Partnership Members, I am committed to delivering the Plan in order to provide the best possible solutions to the opportunities and challenges the district faces. I believe that for our communities to thrive we need to work with them and integrate the delivery of our services. Through this, we will have more opportunities for joining up the way we work in neighbourhoods to improve people’s quality of life and to help address major issues such as climate change.
A key achievement at the start of 2008/09 was meeting our PSA1 target to reduce crime by 35% compared to levels of crime in 2003/04. This was the best performance in West Yorkshire and one of the highest reductions in the region. It also reflects and builds upon the success of partner and community collaborations over recent years to address re-offending, to provide more people with treatment for their substance misuse problems and to reduce the risk and prevalence of victimisation.
Despite this great success we still need to address people’s perceptions that crime is increasing in some of our communities and this year the partnership responded to the findings of the Casey Review by becoming a crime and justice pioneer area. This is challenging us to review the way in which communities and citizens engage with criminal justice services to ensure that for them, justice is seen and justice is done.
To become even more effective, a comprehensive review of community engagement is driving forward work to improve the way in which partners coordinate community engagement and share and act upon the results obtained. In addition, a new strategic framework for community cohesion, Wakefield’s Shared Future, was launched. It establishes a sustainable approach to creating stronger communities, where people have a stronger sense of belonging to the places where they live.
In 2009/10 we will build on last year’s successes, continuously seeking ways to improve performance. The Safer Communities Partnership will also strive to find new ways of working together with the other thematic partners on cross cutting issues, especially to target inequalities across the district. This includes engaging with the voluntary and community sector to harness the skills and knowledge that they bring and to provide more opportunities for citizens to get involved.
I look forward to leading this work on behalf of the Partnership and reviewing our progress over the coming year.
Ken Taylor, Executive Director Groundwork Wakefield
