The Crime and Disorder Audit Process: A Post-Mortem on the First Round
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The Crime and Disorder Audit Process: A Post-Mortem on the First Round Kate Bowers, Jennifer Jennings and Alex Hirschfield 1 This paper reviews crime and disorder audits published following the 1998 Crime and Disorder Act. It specifically examines the audits produced in the North-west and North-east of England, by means of a survey of the partnerships as well as an analysis of the content and design of the audit documents themselves. The primary aim of this exercise was to establish what was best practice and what elements were involved in obtaining this. In general, it has been found that last time round the whole process was an important learning experience, which is likely to require a number of changes not only in organisational matters but also in relation to data issues. Key Words: Crime and disorder audits; partnerships; audit process; design and content; public consultation; crime and disorder strategies Introduction The 1998 Crime and Disorder Act made it a statutory duty for every local authority and police force in England and Wales to produce crime and disorder audits for their areas. The audits were to be used to identify problems to be tackled in three-year crime and disorder strategies, which were to include crime prevention measures and specific targets for crime reduction. The first round of audits and strategies was published in April 1999, and a second round is due in April 2002. The challenge created by the first round has meant that local authorities and other members of the Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships have had to reconsider some elements of their approach to the production of the audits. This paper looks at the North-west and North-east regions of England and examines some of the methods used and problems encountered by crime and disorder audit teams during the production of their audits. It also reviews some examples of best practice in relation to the design and content of the audit documents themselves. Background research Crime and disorder partnerships have had some guidance regarding the content and use of audits, some of which (such as that from the Home Office2 and the Audit Commission3 ) was available for the first round of audits, and some (such as a review undertaken by the National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders4 and the Home Office auditing ‘toolkit’5 ), have been made available more recently, or are still under development. The various guidance documents differ in terms of their level of comprehensiveness and of the knowledge of the auditing process that they assume. In general, the documents use best practice examples and tend to pitch some of the examples of analysis at a fairly high level. It is apparent that while useful to the partnerships, such guidance, especially within the first round of audits, caused a certain degree of panic concerning just what was expected. Indeed, research has shown that the Home Office guidance has been misunderstood,6 that some partnerships found it a little bulky and overly wordy in
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