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The Audit Commission's Lead For Criminal Justice Work In The Southern Region.

Kit Harbottle looks at the opportunities and challenges facing Local Criminal Justice Boards


In April 2003, forty two Local Criminal Justice Boards (LCJBs) were established in England and Wales, replacing the former Area Criminal Justice Strategy Committees. As they come together in LCJBs, the local representatives of criminal justice agencies share a common task - to improve the delivery of justice and the service provided to victims and witnesses, and secure public confidence in the criminal justice system. A recent report from the Audit Commission Local Criminal Justice Boards - Supporting change management welcomes this opportunity for change, and suggests ways of overcoming barriers the new boards may face. A key message is the importance of making effective links to the wider local agenda.

The report draws on the learning and experience of three boards studied as they were set up earlier this year; on the Commission's extensive experience of inter-agency partnerships; and on its research for a report on the experiences of victims and witnesses to be published in the autumn.

The Audit Commission identifies three key challenges that LCJBs are likely to face:
Engagement - securing the commitment of all member agencies in the
partnership, as well as engaging wider stakeholders so that the LCJB fulfils its potential as a focus for improvement.
Governance - having robust and transparent arrangements for conducting
business, including managing multiple accountabilities and ensuring that members fully appreciate their roles and responsibilities within the partnership.
Performance - being clear about what the LCJB needs to do to achieve its objectives, with robust arrangements for measuring progress and making sure that action is taken early when things are going wrong or if progress is too slow.

The Audit Commission also identifies some issues that need to be addressed at national level to make it easier for the boards to improve locally.

Engagement

Senior executives from the Crown Court, Magistrates Court, Crown Prosecution Service, Police, Probation, Prison Service, and Youth Offending Team (YOT) come together at the Local Criminal Justice Board. To achieve their objectives LCJBs need the full commitment of all these diverse organisations, and the practitioners who work for and with them. Developing a collaborative culture that engages people at all levels from all parts of the criminal justice system is critical to building commitment. Partnership protocols, good inter-agency planning and joint training can all help with this. Communication is particularly important. Decision makers need to know what is happening in practice, and practitioners need to have the opportunity to influence policy and services as well as know what is expected of them.

Barristers, judges, solicitors and magistrates are not directly represented on LCJBs, although there is a requirement to include them in consultation arrangements. This is in contrast to the Area Criminal Justice Committees, which were chaired by judges, and included representatives of the bench and legal professions in their large membership. LCJBs need to find effective and efficient ways of consulting these stakeholders. For example, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight have a Legal Group including representatives of magistrates, the bar, judges and law societies, which acts as a forum to share information on LCJB plans, and discuss practitioners' concerns.

The criminal justice system is not separate from the rest of society. Within the geographical area covered by any LCJB there are a number of Local Strategic Partnerships responsible for overall community strategy, and in deprived areas for channelling significant external funding. They, and the statutory Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships and Drug Action Teams, have related agendas of reducing crime, improving safety and reducing the fear of crime. Police and probation are active in these partnerships, but at a ence. LCJBs need to build effective relationships and use opportunities for collaboration on consultation, public communications and other initiatives.

This is particularly important for improving public confidence. LCJBs need to find out what matters most to local people, address concerns and communicate what they are doing about them. Much relevant information and tested consultation systems will be available through member agencies and existing partnerships. Before investing in new approaches LCJBs need to identify:
· what information is already available?
· to what extent this meets their needs?
· what other views should be sought and when?
· what is the most efficient way of doing this?

The members of the public most directly affected are victims and witnesses. LCJBs must develop user-focused cultures that put their needs at the heart of their business. Early actions for boards to engage with · mapping existing services and how these match needs;
· joining up systems and resources to provide a seamless service.

Governance

Successful partnerships are founded on strong ownership of shared objectives, clear management control arrangements and being visibly accountable to stakeholders. Accountability is complex and exists on different levels. As well as being accountable collectively to the National Criminal Justice Board for the shared Public Service Agreement (PSA) targets, individual agencies are accountable to their own governing bodies including police authorities and probation boards. The commitment of these governing bodies will be critical to the success of LCJBs and agencies need involve them in shaping LCJB work.

While local authorities and NHS bodies are not directly part of the criminal justice system, they have indirect links through YOTs. The single YOT manager on an LCJB is the only formal link not only to several other YOT managers, but to the local authorities and NHS bodies on their management committees.

The shared agenda goes beyond youth crime. LCJBs need robust arrangements for agreeing with the health service the approach to mentally disordered or drug misusing offenders.

The volume of work and co-ordination involved in delivering LCJB objectives is considerable and it is important that people know what they are responsible for and to whom, and decisions can be made at the right level and the right time.

Performance management

Managing performance is about practical ways to improve how things are done, to deliver better quality services to local people and to improve accountability. It is not just about information systems, targets, indicators and plans; it is also about getting the right focus, leadership and culture in place.

The PSA targets provide the high level vision for LCJBs, but to build commitment and encourage focus boards need to integrate these with local priorities as far as possible. They must also build their targets into the plans of individual agencies to ensure that achieving shared objectives is not an extra chore but part of every day business.

In Avon and Somerset, as part of the preparation for setting up the LCJB, a two day event was held to focus on key themes, and resolve possible conflicts between the priorities from different national and local sources. This resulted in a strategy for 2003-2005, which guides the new board. While addressing the national objectives, it also clearly focuses on local priorities such as street crime and domestic violence, which have been agreed as important areas of work.

As well as having a clear vision, successful partnerships have strategies to achieve this vision. For LCJBs this involves mapping out how they will develop their capability and capacity as a partnership, to achieve long term improvements. Finding the right framework for managing performance is also important and LCJBs need to develop arrangements that help people at different levels focus on what needs to be done to improve. Avon and Somerset LCJB has regular 'check point' meetings between lead members for specific work streams and the LCJB chair prior to each full board meeting. Their purpose is to discuss progress in detail, give a clear focus to accountability, check for overlaps and gaps and identify issues which will need board level decisions or action to remove barriers.

While partnership goals need to be part of everybody's 'day job', there is a need for a resource for central co-ordination. As part of the changes Home Office funded performance officers have been appointed to co-ordinate performance monitoring and help drive improvement. LCJBs are finding that they need to supplement this resource to cope with the volume of work. For example Thames Valley LCJB the police seconded a chief inspector to the LCJB office.


What is needed for the LCJBs to succeed

The Audit Commission report offers a vision of what success might look like for a Local Criminal Justice Board:
Outcomes:
· Greater overall public confidence in the ability of the criminal justice service to address what matters to local communities.
· Improved confidence of minority ethnic communities in the CJS.
· Improved services for victims and witnesses.
· More offenders brought to justice.
· Improved performance by individual LCJB agencies against national standards and measures.
Approach
· Integration of LCJB priorities with those of individual agencies and other local partnerships.
· Strategic use of resources across agencies to achieve shared priorities.
· Effective management of diversity and equality issues across criminal justice agencies.
· Radical improvement of information and communication technology
· Good decisions based on accurate and timely information.
· Good communications, externally and within member agencies
· All members agree how well the LCJB is performing

LCJBs are only six months old, and like all infants their success will depend on their ability to learn. The Audit Commission suggests the following characteristics of a learning partnership:
· Self aware and has well-informed and realistic understanding of what has been and remains to be achieved.
· Achieves successes in priority areas and learns from this experience.
· Recognises and learns from problems and mistakes, changing approaches in light of learning.
· Recognises and works to overcome barriers between partner organisations.
· Recognises and works to overcome external barriers to the partnership.

The relationship between LCJBs and the new National Criminal Justice Board is highlighted by the Audit Commission as a key one to get right. This will be aided if the Government can
o Allow flexibility for local evidence based targets
o Clarify how LCJBs will be held accountable, but avoid overloading them with priorities and bureaucracy
o Help improvement through bench marking, sharing good practice, and performance management
o Acknowledge the role of other bodies assist linkages with them

The Audit Commission is an independent body responsible for ensuring that public money is spent economically, efficiently and effectively, to achieve high-quality local and national services for the public. Our work covers local government, housing, health and criminal justice services.

www.audit-commission.gov.uk

Kit Harbottle

   
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