How should the community safety manager role change post-PCC?

Chris Williams

One of the benefits of having a national role is the opportunity to spend time with some of the best thinkers from across the sector. In the past couple of days I’ve met with two women who are thinking creatively about the changing landscape for the Community Safety Manager, and what opportunities Police and Crime Commissioners may offer for redefining this role.

The first is the head of community safety for a large northern city. Her proposal is to offer to make her post a joint one between the city council and the PCC. Her thinking on this is that the role of the PCC extends so much beyond the force that the PCC will want a direct line of management over the commissioning of crime reduction services. For her part, a close relationship between the PCC and her team is more likely to guarantee the future of the community safety unit; as a key member of the PCC’s delivery arm, the PCC should be more likely to see the advantages of working in partnership with the council.

I can see the benefits of this relationship on both sides, but it also raises some issues; although hers is the largest city in the force area, there are other key councils too – will all of their community safety managers become joint appointments too? Will a PCC be expected to fund the post at some point in the future – and will they want to? Will a PCC want the responsibility of line management – and if this sits with the council only, will the PCC see the point in the arrangement?

My other meeting was with the chief executive of a large police authority, who viewed the CSMs of the future as technical advisors to their area’s Police and Crime Panel member.

The Panel’s role is, of course, to hold the PCC to account, but in order to do this effectively panel members will need to fully grasp the impact of decisions made by a PCC; and who is better placed to advise on these than the CSM? The chief exec saw this almost as an adversarial relationship; the Panel, armed with information provided by CSMs, ensuring that the PCC makes decisions based on outcomes rather than populism.

The issue here is that clearly the Community Safety Manager will need to work in partnership with the PCC; it’s written into the legislation, for starters. With the finishing of Home Office funding streams in March 2013, the CSM will be looking to the PCC for financial contributions to the most important activity in their area. An adversarial relationship will surely not help this; but in any case, without your councillor to go into bat for you, armed with your finest intelligence, what chance would a community safety team have of successfully bidding, especially once the “commissioning pot” dries up in 2014?

I’d be interested in hearing from CSMs as to how they see their own roles in the future. Alignment with PCC? Supportive of councillor? Or trying manfully to juggle both?

Hi Chris, This is a very interesting topic. For me some of this comes down to the geographical area that you are in. An area that has a county unit could benefit in terms of a joint post, which would provide some longitivity for a unit, and I would imagine appeal in terms of having a single point of contact for a PCC. But what about the districts that feed into that process? Would they have to agree that the CSP Manager represents them all, and is their point of contact with a PCC? Would the CSP Managers remit change if they are joint funded, and would their work focus on the partnership community issues for their area, or would they be an extension of the Office of the PCC? Looking ahead to the future (crystal ball time) would a new PCC for the county want the same structure and joint post / model of working? For me operating in a county where there are three unitary authorities, we do not have a county service or county CSP Manager. The three CSPs are different and have aligned to their local community need, but we do have some shared services (IOM, DIP countywide and Domestic Abuse as a shared service between two authorities). If a PCC is looking countywide for commissioning, then utilising the CSPs knowledge and experience as commissioners would be a practical approach. This may also aid commissioning 'a service' with joint outcomes rather than one per Local Authority. Communication is key - what outcomes are we trying to get to and what outcomes can we only reach together? Let's not forget that the PCC has a major role with the Police, Victim Services and Criminal Justice, some of which is still being worked through. Strong working relationships with colleagues in these organisations will be essential to jointly improve and work through inevitable changes. CSPs need to challenge what they do and how they do it. Where can I add value as a CSP Manager and how can the CSP work smarter? Like I say, a very interesting topic! Joy

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