Safer Norfolk Plan 2025 to 2028

Foreword

I am proud of what we achieved through the first Safer Norfolk Plan. This plan outlines a shared vision for a safer Norfolk, where residents and visitors feel understood, secure, and valued. This ambitious plan is testament to collaborative ethos that all partners bring to the Norfolk Community Safety Partnership (CSP).

We recognise the multifaceted nature of community safety, encompassing crime prevention, targeting offenders, providing advice, guidance, and services to the public, ensuring our partnership’s organisations are equipped to respond and the importance of having an up-to-date assessment of issues. Community Safety is an ever-changing topic, affected by external economic and social pressures like the cost of living, job security and housing. 

For us, innovation defines us. Norfolk was the first and to date only CSP to take the initiative and agree that management of the CSP could be delivered by the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Norfolk (OPCCN). This step has added resources to the response to community safety and improved the join up and strategic alignment across partnerships focusing on health, safeguarding and criminal justice. 

The Police and Crime Commissioner for Norfolk is a key stakeholder for the activity of the CSP. The Police and Crime Plan shares its strategic space with the Safer Norfolk Plan and many of the priorities and intentions are shared. OPCCN management of the CSP ensures that duplication is removed, shared focuses result in strategic alignment and impact is increased by utilising the role of the PCC and responsible authorities to deliver for Norfolk.

Within this plan, you will find a thorough assessment of community safety and a comprehensive framework for delivery against our community safety priorities for Norfolk. We will work tirelessly to deliver four crucial enablers for community safety:

• The public are aware of community safety issues and reporting process are clear and accessible.
• The partnership’s workforces are provided with resources to enable them to effectively identify and respond to community safety issues.
• The response to our community safety priorities is based on up to date and high-quality analysis. 
• Effective interventions are in place that prevent ASB and crime, their causes, make communities safer, provide support to victims and improve feelings of safety.

Together we can make Norfolk a safer place for all.

Mark Stokes 

Chair of the Norfolk Community Safety Partnership and Chief Executive & Monitoring Officer, Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Norfolk 

Norfolk at a glance 

Norfolk borders Lincolnshire to the northwest, Cambridgeshire to the west and southwest and Suffolk to the south.  Its northern and eastern boundaries are the North Sea and, to the north-west, The Wash. Norfolk is made up of seven districts: Breckland; Broadland Great Yarmouth; King’s Lynn and West Norfolk; Norwich; South Norfolk; and North Norfolk.

Norfolk is a largely rural county covering an area of 2,074 square miles, with an estimated population of 916,120 people (2021 census).  There are four main urban areas: the city of Norwich; Great Yarmouth; King’s Lynn, and Thetford.  The rural nature of the county makes travel and access to services a challenge for isolated communities. Breckland, South Norfolk and North Norfolk are mainly rural (Place - JSNA - Norfolk Insight).

Norfolk’s population is older than that of England with 24% of the population being aged 65 and over, compared to an average of 19% for England. There is significant variation by district, with 33% of North Norfolk’s population aged 65 or older, compared to 15% of Norwich’s population.

16% of Norfolk’s population is aged under 16, and 18% are aged under 18. South Norfolk (20%) is the Norfolk district with the highest proportion of children aged under 18 and North Norfolk (15%) has the smallest proportion.

19% of people in Norfolk have a disability, compared to an average of 18% for England. 11% of disabled people in Norfolk say their daily activities are limited ‘a little’ and 9% say their daily activities are limited ‘a lot’ (2021 census).  Mental health conditions, musculoskeletal conditions and neurodivergence are some of the most common types of disability in England (NHS, 2023). Approximately 2.2% of England’s population has a learning disability, and 1.3% have severe hearing loss. Three quarters of disabled people in England have more than one impairment.

94.7% of the Norfolk population is white, 2.1% is Asian or Asian British, 0.9% is Black or Black British, 1.6% is of Mixed or Multiple ethnic backgrounds, and 0.7% is ‘other’. Most of the Asian/Asian British population is of Indian or Chinese heritage, and most of the Black/Black British population is of African heritage (as opposed to Caribbean). 91% of the Norfolk population are UK nationals, 8% higher than the rest of England (83%). Of those non-UK nationals living in Norfolk, more than half are EU nationals, the largest populations of which were from Lithuania, Poland and Portugal (census 2021).

47% of Norfolk’s population identify as Christian, 44% no religion and all other people identifying as other religious groups account for between 0.9% (Muslim) and 0.1% (Jewish and Sikh) of Norfolk’s population. 54% of Norwich’s population has no religion compared to 40% of North Norfolk and King’s Lynn & West Norfolk’s populations (census 2021).

89% of Norfolk’s population aged 16 and over are heterosexual, 1.4% gay or lesbian, and 1.4% bisexual (8% did not answer the census question). There is significant variation among districts, with 84% of Norwich’s population identifying as heterosexual compared to 91% of Broadland’s population. Norwich has the highest proportion of people who identify as bisexual (3.9%) of all local authorities in England and Wales (census 2021).

The Index of Multiple Deprivation ranks all the Lower Super Output Areas (LSOAs) in England into ten deciles, with decile 1 representing the most deprived 10% of LSOAs and decile 10 representing the least deprived 10% of LSOAs. 7.4% of Norfolk LSOAs are in decile 1, 7.1% are in decile 2 and 9.1% are in decile 3. (Deprivation - Norfolk Insight). Great Yarmouth, Thetford, King’s Lynn and Norwich have higher rates of relative deprivation, whilst South Norfolk and Broadland have less relative deprivation (English indices of deprivation 2019)

Norfolk’s population is projected to increase by approximately 11% over the next 20 years and Norfolk is expected to remain the 8th largest local authority in England. An 11% increase means an approximate increase of 103,000 people, with 83,000 of the increase expected to be in the population aged over 65. 30% of the Norfolk population is predicted to be aged over 65 in 20 years’ time, up from 25% now (Population projections for local authorities: Table 2 - Office for National Statistics).

Crime and community safety in Norfolk

Overall, Norfolk is one of the safest counties in the country.  The rates of reported crime, including violence, are lower than comparator areas nationally, with a rate of 63 crimes per 1,000 people, and in the last 12 months has fallen 11.6%.

The COVID pandemic forced a drop in levels of public space violence, but nationally we saw high violence rates, with domestic abuse accounting for a higher proportion of violent crime.  In Norfolk, rates of violence, particularly domestic abuse, are relatively high to comparator areas nationally.  Norfolk has seen a slight decline in reporting figures for 2023/24, but it remains above pre-pandemic levels.

Nationally and in Norfolk, reports of sexual offences are increasing. High profile national incidents, media coverage and campaigns contribute to this increase, with a potential rise in the number of victims reporting attributing to these figures.  

Stalking, including domestic related, and cyber stalking continue to be reported, with national figures showing younger people are more likely to be a victim in the year ending March 2024.  Norfolk saw a reduction in these offences over the last 12 months.

Young people’s wellbeing is being impaired by social media, deprivation and cost-of-living pressures, and for some this can affect their behaviour with peers and in the wider community. 

Violence amongst young people including violence against the person, sexual and possession of weapon offences are all concerns, but Norfolk has seen a decrease in these over the last 12 months.  

Anti-social behaviour (ASB), affecting people and locations, continues to be a primary concern for local communities, with our main city of Norwich and larger towns experiencing higher volumes of environmental and disregard for community concerns.  Norfolk has seen an increase in reports, when compared to the previous 12 months, but this is driven by an increase in reporting to district councils.

Deprivation and cost-of-living pressures on our communities can lead to people being more vulnerable to exploitation or increased fears of crime and safety. Nationally, and in Norfolk, we have seen an increase in retail theft, which goes hand in hand with cost-of-living pressures.

When compared to national areas, Norfolk has a similar rate for offences of Theft, a lower rate for offences of Public Order, and one of the lowest Burglary rates.

All our commissioned services are responding to people with unmet needs locally, improving and delivering service offers to meet those needs across the county.

Hate crime nationally is decreasing, and includes any criminal offence perceived to be motivated by hate or prejudice to someone’s personal characteristic. Norfolk too has seen a reduction in reported hate crime in the last 12 months. However, international events have led to some groups experiencing increased levels of hate crime. For example, Anti-Muslim hate crime has increased by 73% nationally in the last year according to Tell MAMA and antisemitic incidents rose by 147% in 2023 compared 2022.

Norfolk has one of the lowest rates in the East of England region for opiates and crack cocaine misuse. Alcohol misuse in Norfolk is similar to national averages. Substance and alcohol misuse involving young people is slightly higher than regional and national averages.

Nationally, high-potency drugs such as ketamine and nitazenes are a significant and growing threat, driving up serious harm and drug-related deaths.  Between 2023/24, a total of 33 deaths involved the use of nitazines in the East of England.

Serious and Organised Crime remains a threat in Norfolk caused by networks of criminals either operating in groups or independently. Key threats which require a response from a range of agencies including Police and local authorities include drug trafficking and exploitation of vulnerable people. 

Modern slavery and human trafficking are crimes that violate human rights, using coercion and deception to exploit a person. Nationally, labour exploitation for adults and criminal exploitation for children were most reported in 2019, with a high increase in offences recorded between 2018 and 201910. Between 2022 and 2023, Norfolk recorded 269 victims of modern slavery.

Fraud is the most experienced crime in the UK, and accounts for over 37% of crime reported in England and Wales, a 10% drop on the previous 12 months. There were 4,600 fraud reports in Norfolk, accounting for financial loss of nearly £20m.

Rural crime nationally is increasing, with thefts of livestock and agricultural vehicles being the latest trends.  The east of England has seen an 8.4% increase in the cost of rural crimes between 2022 and 2023, but Norfolk, a largely rural county, does not have similar rates to our comparator areas nationally.

Road Safety nationally saw a decline in fatalities for year ending June 2024, and little change to killed and seriously injured (KSI) rates for the previous 12 months.  In Norfolk this continues to be a priority due to our rural road networks. There was a slight increase in road casualties between 2021 and 2023, but this remains lower than pre-2020 levels.

The county of Norfolk is a popular tourist destination with expansive coasts and inland waterways.  A water safety strategy promotes safe use of open water to help prevent water safety related fatalities in Norfolk.  Between 2014-2022 in Norfolk, there have been a total of 37 fatalities. 

The aim of the Prevent Duty is to stop terrorism and support rehabilitation and disengagement in these types of activities. Nationally, there were just under 7,000 referrals to Prevent, which is an increase on the previous year.  East of England referrals to the Prevent Programme between 2023 and 2024 are lower than other areas nationally, but feature within the top 50% of regional statistics.

Voice of our communities

Community safety
A 2024 Norfolk Community Safety Partnership & Serious Violence Survey received 430 responses from residents of Norfolk on ASB, neighbourhood crime and serious violence affecting Norfolk, their feelings of safety, knowledge about how to report and what community safety interventions they wanted to see. 

Responders felt that gangs and county lines drug dealing, and domestic abuse were the factors affecting levels of violent crime in their local areas and the county the most. Drug and alcohol consumption was most often perceived as the main cause of crime in respondents’ local areas and across the county, followed by poverty, deprivation and drug dealing. 

The majority (61%) of respondents felt that the amount of serious violence in their local area has increased in recent years. This figure varied depending on where responders lived. The majority (78%) of respondents felt that the amount of serious violence in the county has increased in recent years. 

Shoplifting was most often perceived as the neighbourhood crime type impacting respondents’ local areas and the county the most. This was followed by theft and burglary. However, there is great variation in results by district.

For ASB, environmental (such as fly tipping and littering) was perceived as impacting respondents’ local areas the most. Drug dealing or use was often seen as a type of ASB impacting respondents’ local areas and was perceived as the type of ASB impacting Norfolk the most, followed by environmental crime. Street drinking was perceived to be an issue in urban areas over rural ones. 

Generally, Norfolk residents feel safe. The majority (94%) of respondents feel safe at home during the day, compared to 86% after dark, and the majority (87%) of respondents feel safe when out and about during the day, compared to only 50% after dark. Feelings of safety varied based on which district respondents lived in.

Most respondents stated they know how to report ASB to the authorities (80%). This is notably higher than the results from the previous survey (60%). Respondents knew where people can seek support if they are affected by crime (60%). 

Interventions the public were particularly interested to see in their local area were:

• Targeted educational and outreach programmes to change the behaviours and attitudes of people committing ASB (60%)
• Educational programmes focused on changing attitudes and improving understanding to reduce sexual violence and harassment (57%)
• More CCTV cameras (52%)

Youth voice

In 2023, Norfolk County Council and the Norfolk Community Safety Partnership hosted a ‘Feeling Safe and Secure in Your Community’ Youth Workshop. 72 young people aged 11-19 attended, representing 15 participation groups and networks from across Norfolk.

Attendees told us that safety means:

“When you feel comfortable, equal, secure, consensual, in control, valued, confident, free, and protected in everyday existence. Safety is trusting the people around you, the community, the place you live, your wider surroundings and this should be felt by everyone. A place you can be your true self, with absence of fear”.

What makes young people feel unsafe in their community?

• Lost trust in the system and services
• When harm is done to you, and nothing happens
• People may take risks for money or desperation
• ASB due to lack of provision
• Places where lots of people are getting drunk or taking drugs
• Gangs are the failure of the community

What makes young people feel safe in their community?

• Cameras make us feel safer as they act as a deterrent with CCTV
• Walking with friends
• Able to get advice, help and support when I need it
• Having streetlights
• Being with a group of friends
• Preventing-Redirecting-Responding
• Security in public places
• Reduce drug and alcohol consumption
• More police presence but sometimes it’s worse when they unfairly pick on young people
• Create good reporting/flagging systems
• Youth Groups would be a safe place to go
• More support for the homeless - foodbanks, accommodation, wellbeing support 
• Youth spaces/provision
• Safe Youth Spaces and Green Spaces
• Stop crime before it happens

In 2024, the Norfolk Youth Advisory Boards arranged for nearly 12,000 children and young people in Norfolk to be asked “what would benefit you in your education?” Young people said they wanted anti-bullying (30% - 4th highest of 10 categories) and inclusivity (10th highest) education to be improved.

The children and young people were also asked “what would you like to see improved in your community and leisure time?” Respondents wanted improvements to:

• Transport links (45%)
• Better maintained parks and outdoor spaces (43%)
• Free or cheap clubs and activities (42%)
• Feeling safe (34%)
• Safe ways to travel by cycling and walking (33%)
• More youth provision, clubs and indoor spaces (28%)
• Opportunities to improve wellbeing (24%)
• Drug, alcohol and gambling advice (18%)
• Opportunities to engage in local environmental and climate change activities (13%)
• Community action and volunteering opportunities (10%)

Consultation on priorities

Launching in September 2024, the Norfolk PCC and CSP’s joint online eight-week consultation on priorities collected responses from 1,678 people, with 629 additional comments made. It asked respondents to rank 10 priorities in order of importance to them, which provided a ranked list of community safety priorities (see figure 1). The three highest priorities according to the survey are ‘Focus on prevention’, ‘Making Norfolk streets safer’, and ‘Restore trust in policing’, however many responders highlighted they felt all proposed priorities were important.

The five most common themes from the comments were:

• People wanting more visible policing, especially in rural areas, with officers on the beat not just in cars.
• All the priorities are important and ranking them was very challenging.
• Requests for greater enforcement against speeding offences and dangerous driving.
• Trust and confidence in policing should be a key performance indicator of success in the other priorities, not a priority itself.
• Respondents not understanding why the Violence Against Women and Girls priority seems to exclude men and boys, who can also be victims of crimes such as domestic abuse and sexual violence.

Partnership perspective

Community safety issues are interrelated with one another. Drugs and alcohol are a community safety issue but also are associated with violence, criminal exploitation, road traffic collisions, and neighbourhood crime. Organised crime has an influence over serious violence, drugs and alcohol and modern slavery. The interrelatedness of community safety issues makes co-ordination, collaboration and communication an important aspect of the community safety partnerships work moving forwards. 

Underreporting is a consistent theme for most community safety issues. Within this, confidence to report, awareness of how to report and whom to, awareness of victimisation and not feeling any action will be taken on the report all had an impact. This can be particularly acute for marginalised and minority groups. Understanding this helps guide the work of the community safety partnership towards ensuring reporting is simple, accessible and the public feel confident to do so. Further, public understanding of key community safety issues influences levels of reporting, therefore increasing awareness of community safety issues should feature within the community safety partnership’s plan moving forwards. 

It is important that the CSP continue to be monitor community issues to ensure it is well informed to respond by providing up to date data products for partnership use covering community safety. This includes providing bespoke data products that address specific and emerging community safety issues for Norfolk. 

Partners considered the capacity and capability of Norfolk’s workforce in responding to community safety issues. Budgetary constraints of organisations were highlighted by many partners as a barrier to responding to issues but also that significant resource is invested in ensuring the best possible response is provided in Norfolk. Partners felt supporting workforces to respond to the community safety issues should feature in the community safety partnership’s work moving forwards. 

Partner contributions shared the desire and need to focus on prevention. Community Safety Partners are well place to deliver prevention at a population level, as well as targeted activity for at risk groups or those affected by a community safety issue. 

Priorities and enablers

The community safety partnership utilised the evidence set out in this strategy to agree the following community safety priorities for Norfolk, to be delivered through the strong local partnership networks:

• Preventing and responding to serious violence, including domestic abuse, and sexual violence and abuse.
• Work together to tackle drug and alcohol related crime, support a high-quality treatment system and to deliver a generational shift away from drug use.
• Deliver a co-ordinated partnership response to modern slavery and criminal exploitation, including child criminal and child sexual exploitation.
• Support Norfolk residents to stay safe from fraud.
• Keep Norfolk streets safe by tackling place-based crime and ASB (Includes neighbourhood crime, ASB and rural/environmental crime, retail crime and arson)
• Collaborate with partners on a safe systems approach to road safety
• Work with our community to prevent violent extremism and build community cohesion.
• Deliver a coordinated approach to water safety to reduce the number of fatalities in future.

The CSP understands that serious and organised crime underpins many of its priorities. The activity of the partnership will directly respond to organised crime through delivery plans against the above priorities, as well as through collaboration with the Local Organised Crime Group partnership and its utilisation of the Clear, Hold, Build methodology.

Many of the priorities identified are interrelated to one another and require interventions that can respond holistically and for partners organisations and professionals to be omni-competent. 

The Norfolk Community Safety Strategic Assessment 2024 highlighted four enablers for Community Safety, which will shape the delivery of the partnership for the upcoming plan period 2025-28:

• The public are aware of community safety issues and reporting process are clear and accessible.
• The partnership’s workforces are provided with resources to enable them to effectively identify and respond to community safety issues.
• The response to our community safety priorities is based on up to date and high-quality analysis. 
• Effective interventions are in place that prevent ASB and crime, their causes, make communities safer, provide support to victims and improve feelings of safety.

The CSP will utilise its partnership structure to facilitate effective join-up, prevent duplication between community safety priority areas and continue to apply a public health model to crime and ASB prevention.

NCSP Workplan 

Each community safety priority has its own work plan, containing the priorities that multi-agency partners have agreed to work towards. These work plans will deliver the four enablers for community safety. 

Serious violence, domestic abuse, sexual violence and abuse
The Serious Violence Duty Programme Group has developed a strategy that sets out the partnership vision, strategic objective and four priority areas:

• A focus on the safety of young people.
• A focus on the prevention of domestic abuse.
• A focus on the places and spaces most affected by serious violence.
• A focus on drugs and alcohol as an associate of serious violence.

The Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence Group applies the learning from Domestic Homicide Reviews, and co-ordinates partnership activity. It has established its priorities for delivery: 

• Ensuring children and young people affected by domestic abuse and sexual violence are understood, have their voice heard, and are supported to recover.
• Improving the public understanding of domestic abuse, ensure reporting pathways are clear, and services are well advertised.
• Increase the skills and knowledge of workforce regarding domestic abuse and sexual violence and abuse. 
• Assessing and improving the strategic partnership understanding of domestic abuse and sexual violence and abuse.
• Delivering preventative and supportive interventions for domestic abuse and sexual violence and abuse, utilising principles from the public health approach.

Drugs and alcohol

Support the delivery of the Norfolk Drug and Alcohol Partnership’s priorities: 

• Develop a Dual Diagnosis Pathway.
• Improve rates of continuity of care from prison.
• Create a sustainable mechanism for workforce development across the sector.
• Embedding voice of lived experience across NDAP partnership.
• Develop a multiagency/partnership response to improve the outcomes for those with complex and unmet needs.
• Respond to the emerging risks of the changing drug trends in county.
• Joint Priority with SVD to establish a partnership response to tackling Exploitation across the county.

Criminal exploitation, including child exploitation and modern slavery

The Norfolk Anti-Slavery Network has set the priorities for modern slavery as:

• Identification of victims.
• Protection and empowerment of people at risk.
• Support, equip and enable our workforces to respond as a whole-system approach to MSHT.
• Prevention through sharing a joint understanding of drivers and scale across strategic partnerships.

The Norfolk Vulnerable Adolescents Group has established objectives to:

• Raise awareness across Norfolk of the risks of extra-familial harm posed to children and young people. 
• Ensure early identification/intervention of children and young people, at risk of exploitation, individually or in cohorts. 
• Improve the multi-agency safeguarding response to children and young people who are known to be exploited. 
• Identify exploiters and disrupt their activity through the use of Modern Slavery legislation and other tactics.

The Exploitation Group has identified it will focus on:

• County Lines 
• Cuckooing 

Fraud

The Norfolk Against Scams Partnership will work together to:

• Increase public awareness of fraud, how to keep safe and ensure reporting pathways are clear.
• Increase the skills and knowledge of fraud amongst professionals in Norfolk’s most likely to come in to contact with victims of fraud.
• Undertake strategic assessments of fraud, its impact and gaps in provision to inform the local response. 
• Deliver interventions that prevent fraud and support victims.

Tackling place-based crime and ASB

Explore establishing a countywide forum focusing on the strategic co-ordination of the response to places and spaces affected by serious violence, neighbourhood crime and ASB. This forum will develop its workplan utilising the enablers for Community Safety established in this plan:

• Increasing public awareness of crime issues affecting their community, how to keep safe, and ensure reporting pathways are clear.
• Increasing the skills and knowledge of locality responders, to support their response to ASB and neighbourhood crime.
• Providing strategic assessment to improve the partnerships understanding of ASB and neighbourhood crime.
• Delivering preventative and supportive interventions for all community safety priorities, utilising principles from the public health approach.

Collaborate with partners on a safe systems approach to road safety

Collaborate with the Road Safety Partnership’s to implement a Safe Systems approach. In particular, the community safety partnership will identify road safety related community safety issues affecting and respond through a Safe Systems approach, which includes focusing on: 

• Safe roads
• Safe speeds 
• Safe vehicles 
• Safe road users 
•  Post-crash response 

Prevent violent extremism and build community cohesion

The Community Relations and Prevent Strategic Group will co-ordinate Norfolk’s partnership response to the Prevent Duty, including:

• For Prevent, a delivery plan that focuses on:
• Provide a multi-agency partnership meeting to effectively monitor and evaluate the impact of Prevent work and provide strategic governance.
• Complete and respond to an annual situational risk assessment.
• Maintain a dedicated, common Prevent referral pathway that is understood by all key stakeholders.
• Deliver a Prevent training plan that measures impact and accounts for key stakeholders’ training needs.
• Support responsible authorities to meet their statutory responsibility to reduce permissive environments.
• Co-ordinate Prevent activity and engage with communities across Norfolk to encourage open and transparent conversation about Prevent and terrorism.
• Oversee the delivery of Norfolk’s Channel Panel.

For community tensions and hate crime, develop a delivery plan centred on the enablers for Community Safety: 

• Increase public awareness of hate crime and ensure reporting pathways are clear
• Increase the skills and knowledge on hate crime and community tensions of Norfolk’s workforce.
• Assess and improv the strategic partnership understanding of hate crime and community tensions.
• Deliver preventative and supportive interventions for hate crime and community tensions.
  Water safety

The Norfolk Water Safety Forum strategy sets out five priority areas: 

• Improving data and information about who is at the greatest risk of water safety incidents so that we can target our resources.
• To ensure that our children and young people are educated about water safety.
• To understand how to mitigate high risk behaviours – such as drinking alcohol while out on the water – and high-risk sites.
• To build on our already good communications to ensure our message is clear, accessible, coordinated and understood by all.
• To bring leadership and resources to promoting water safety.

 Awareness and reporting pathways

Community Safety Enabler 1: The public are aware of community safety issues and reporting process are clear and accessible.

Why it's important:

• Effective awareness raising and ensuring there are clear and accessible reporting pathways can result in increased reporting by encouraging people to report and removing barriers to reporting.
• Informed individuals are better equipped to protect themselves and their loved ones. Awareness campaigns provide knowledge about common safety threats, prevention strategies, and available resources.
• Reduced fear of crime: When people understand the true nature of safety risks and how to mitigate them, they are less likely to feel fear or anxiety. 
• Increasing community engagement: Raising awareness involves community participation, fostering a sense of collective responsibility for safety. This can lead to stronger neighbourhood relationships and a more proactive approach to addressing safety issues.
• Clear reporting mechanisms allow partners to gather information about incidents and effectively investigate and respond.Accurate and timely reporting provides valuable data that can be used to identify patterns, hotspots, and root causes of ASB and crime. This data-driven approach helps inform prevention strategies and resource allocation.

What we will do:

• Deliver targeted campaigns, awareness raising activity and events that increase awareness of our community safety priorities, equipping the public to protect themselves, better identify issues, know how to report and access support.
• Engage the public to inform our understanding of community safety issues, inform where we target resources and understand the impact we are making.
• Provide consistent information and advice through our partner organisations’ websites and other promotional materials, including how to report concerns to the right place, what help is available and how to get it.
• Communicate our activity as a partnership to the public effectively, including the impact that it makes and how communities can get involved.

Increase the skills and knowledge of workforce

Community Safety Enabler 2: the partnership’s workforces are provided with resources to enable them to effectively identify and respond to community safety issues.

Why it's important:

• Ensuring our workforce are knowledgeable on community safety issues supports professionals to make better decisions and deliver high quality responses to clients, service users, and communities. 
• A skilled workforce can identify potential risks, de-escalate situations, and intervene appropriately in community safety issues. This leads to better outcomes for individuals and communities.
• A knowledgeable workforce fosters trust with the community. When people feel that those responsible for their safety are competent and understanding, they are more likely to co-operate and report concerns.
• A skilled workforce can proactively identify and address the root causes of community safety issues, preventing problems from escalating in the first place.
• A skilled workforce can adapt to changing circumstances and emerging challenges. 
• Norfolk is a unique county with diverse communities. Our workforce needs to be able to support all residents and providing information on diversity, intersectionality and inclusion will help achieve this. 
• Training our workforce to be trauma informed can help reduce traumatisation, protect the workforce, and improve service users experience.
• Investing in the skills and knowledge of a community safety workforce is an investment in the safety and well-being of the entire community.

What we will do:

• Ensure that there are awareness raising training packages available to our workforce across our community safety priorities. This will include:
• continuing to monitor domestic abuse training offers through the application of the NCSP DA Training Standards;
• ensuring professionals access informative Prevent Duty training resources; and
• working within subgroup structure to identify additional awareness raising training needs.
• Provide specialist practitioners with access to enhanced training offers, be that for safeguarding, crime and ant-social behaviour problem solving, Prevent Leads, Domestic Abuse Champions or practitioners working with families affected by Child or Adolescent to Parent violence and Abuse.
• Reviews provide us with an opportunity to learn from the past but require skilled professionals to ensure maximum learning is gained. We will provide training to CSP agencies Chairing ASB Case Reviews or Domestic Homicide Review Panel Members, to support them in these roles. 
• Continue to promote trauma informed training offers where available across the partnership. 
• Identify emerging training needs through the subgroup structure and work collaboratively to ensure that these needs are met.
• Collaborate with our sister boards to identify and deliver training opportunities where there is a joint need.

Assessing and improving the understanding of community safety priorities

Community Safety Enabler 3: the response to our community safety priorities is based on up to date and high-quality analysis.

Why it's important:

• A thorough understanding of the root causes of safety issues allows for the development of targeted and effective solutions. This can be both addressing underlying social and economic factors to implementing specific crime prevention interventions.
• Understanding the nature and extent of safety issues helps allocate resources efficiently. This ensures that resources are directed towards the areas and issues that pose the greatest risk to community well-being.
• Understanding safety issues through data collection and analysis allows for evidence-based decision making. This helps ensure that policies and interventions are based on facts and are more likely to be successful.
• By bringing together NCSP data sets and key stakeholders, strategic assessments can foster collaboration and shared responsibility of community safety issues.
• Strategic assessments provide a framework for monitoring progress and evaluating impact of strategies, ensuring that we are responsive to need and accountable to the public.
• By identifying the root cause of crime and disorder, we can ensure we are proactive in our crime prevention interventions.
• A safe community is essential for a good quality of life. Understanding and addressing safety issues can create a more peaceful, secure, and enjoyable environment for everyone.

What we will do:

• Undertake annual refreshes to strategic assessment to ensure that we continue to have an up-to-date understanding of community safety issues.
• Provide the public with opportunities to provides their views on community safety issues regularly and ensuring that this informs our response.
• Utilise available data and information to ensure we understand our communities and use this information to inform our responses.
• Undertake an annual Serious Violence Strategic Needs Assessment, Domestic Abuse Accommodation Strategic Needs Assessment, and Prevent Duty Benchmarking Assessment and utilise it to inform our delivery.
• Each multi-agency partnerships subgroup to ensure it has an up-to-date data picture, which they respond to.
• Establish an approach to deliver the new Duty under the Victims and Prisoners Act 2024 to undertake a joint needs assessment to inform the commissioning of community support services for victims of domestic abuse, sexual abuse, and serious violence.
• Collaborate across the CSP to develop a collective understanding of youth ASB, the drivers and what activity can be delivered in response.
• Undertaking Domestic Homicide Reviews where the criteria are met, ensuring that learning is identified, shared and acted upon.

Delivering preventative and supportive interventions

Community Safety Enabler 4: deliver interventions that prevent ASB and crime, their causes, provide support to victims and improve feelings of safety. Interventions will be evaluated to ensure their impact. 

Why it's important:

• By addressing the root causes of crime and providing support to vulnerable or susceptible individuals, these interventions can help to reduce crime rates and the number of people who become victims of crime.
• When communities are safer, people feel more secure and are able to go about their daily lives without fear. This can lead to improved mental and physical health, as well as increased economic opportunity.
• Preventative and supportive interventions can help to build stronger communities by fostering trust and cooperation between residents and law enforcement. They can also help to address social and economic inequalities that can contribute to crime.
• While there may be initial costs associated with implementing these interventions, they can be more cost-effective in the long run than simply responding to crime after it occurs. This is because they can help to prevent crime from happening in the first place, which can save money on law enforcement, court, and corrections costs.
• Effective interventions are those that set clear goals, are based on evidence of best practice, are targeted at need, are well implemented and evaluated. 

What we will do:

• Develop and implement a strategy under the Victims and Prisoners Act 2024 to direct the commissioning of community support services for victims of domestic abuse, sexual abuse, and serious violence.
• Continue to publish Support in Safe Accommodation Strategy annually, outlining how support for victim-survivors of domestic abuse and their children within safe accommodation will be commissioned. 
• Tackle the impact of drug and alcohol misuse on communities across Norfolk.
• Utilise a problem-solving approach to community safety issues, identify causes, community concerns and drivers of issues and implementing interventions that reduce the issue.
• Support communities across Norfolk to create youth provision that is youth-centred, inclusive and impactful and target resources towards engaging young people who are currently not engaging with existing youth services.
• Seek to develop sustainable and resilient interventions to community safety issues in Norfolk, that increase capacity where possible.

Governance

Community Safety Partnerships (CSPs) were introduced by Section 6 of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 and bring together local partners to formulate and implement strategies to tackle crime, disorder and antisocial behaviour in their communities. They work on the principle that no single agency can address all drivers of crime and antisocial behaviour, and that effective partnership working is vital to ensuring safer communities.

The CSP is made up of five responsible authorities – Police, Local Authority, Fire and Rescue Service, NHS Integrated Care Board and Probation Service – working with a broad range of other partners. 

In Norfolk the 7 district-based CSPs merged in 2012 to form a single Norfolk CSP. In 2020, Norfolk took the unique step to become the only CSP nationally managed and led by an Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner. This approach provides a key opportunity for integration of victim support, criminal justice and community safety partnership approaches.

The Norfolk CSP has key statutory duties:

1. Annual strategic assessment - to identify priorities based on evidence of risk and need and set objectives to address them.
2. Three-year Partnership Plan refreshed annually - to co-ordinate activities to address the community safety priorities.
3. Monitor delivery against our objectives and drive good performance.
4. Commission Domestic Homicide Reviews and hold agencies to account for implementing recommendations.
5. Consult and engage with our communities and use this to inform our strategies and plan.
6. Provide an ASB Case Review Procedure for the county.
7. Develop and maintain appropriate leadership and partnership working to help them have due regard to the need to prevent people from becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism.

Recent legislative and statutory guidance changes have required new multi-agency arrangements to be in place for Norfolk:

1. Domestic Abuse Local Partnership Board are required to ensure the provision of statutory domestic abuse support within safe accommodation services.
2. In Norfolk the response to Serious Violence Duty is under the governance of the Norfolk Community Safety Partnership. The Serious Violence Duty requires responsible authorities and organisations to work together to plan, share data, intelligence and knowledge, to generate evidence-based analysis of the local problem and solutions to prevent and reduce serious violence in local areas.
3. From harm to hope: A 10-year drugs plan sets a requirement for a local Combating Drugs Partnership, which must agree priorities through a strategic needs assessment, develop and deliver a local drug strategy and action plan. 

The Community Safety Partnership Review has considered the relationship between CSPs and PCCs and assessed the role and remit of CSPs in the wider partnership landscape. As a result of the review, the Home Office will be developing new guidance for CSPs, which will reflect the context CSPs currently work within and set out recommended minimum standards, as well as suggestions for good practice.

The Norfolk Community Safety Partnership is accountable to the Home Office. Local scrutiny is provided by the Norfolk Community Safety Partnership Scrutiny Committee. 

The Norfolk Community Safety Partnership collaborates with strategic partnerships with cross-cutting priorities. For safeguarding, this is the Norfolk Safeguarding Children Partnership and the Norfolk Safeguarding Adults Board. The partnership also has a significant crossover with the Children and Young People Strategic Alliance, who share a focus on providing opportunity to children and young people in Norfolk. There is crossover with the Health and Wellbeing Board for drug and alcohol harms and domestic abuse.

The Norfolk Community Safety Partnership has a two-tier partnership structure: strategic partnerships and thematic delivery partnerships.  

Links:  
[1] Data - His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services
[2] Compare your area | Police.uk
[3] Domestic abuse prevalence and victim characteristics - Office for National Statistics
[4] Sexual offences in England and Wales overview - Office for National Statistics
[5] ‘I feel like I am living someone else’s life’: one in seven people a victim of stalking - Office for National Statistics
[6] Children, Violence and Vulnerability 2023 | Youth Endowment Fund
[7] Compare your area | Police.uk
[8] Data - His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services
[9] Tell MAMA Records the Highest Number of Anti-Muslim Hate Cases in 2024 Since Its Founding
[10] Antisemitic Incidents Report 2023 – Blog – CST – Protecting Our Jewish Community
[11] Deaths linked to potent synthetic opioids - GOV.UK
[12] Modern slavery: National Referral Mechanism and Duty to Notify statistics UK, quarter 3 2024 - July to September - GOV.UK
[13] Rural Crime Report 2024 - Download Free Report | NFU Mutual
[14] Reported road casualties in Great Britain, provisional estimates: year ending June 2024  - GOV.UK
[15] Reported road casualty statistics in Great Britain: interactive dashboard, from 2018
[16] WAID Interactive Report | National Water Safety Forum
[17] Individuals referred to and supported through the Prevent Programme, April 2023 to March 2024 - GOV.UK
[18] Serious Violence Duty - GOV.UK
[19] From harm to hope: A 10-year drugs plan to cut crime and save lives - GOV.UK
[20] Includes neighbourhood crime, ASB and rural/environmental crime, retail crime and arson.