Partnership working

Information in this section is aimed at those partners and organisations who will need to work with the police and crime commissioner.

Partners can include organisations that work on community safety, crime, drugs, health or justice locally, or perhaps as part of the police and crime panel, who will scrutinise the performance and decisions of the police and crime commissioner (PCC).

The police and crime commissioners will:

• provide a strong and powerful voice for communities and represent views about how crime is prevented and its consequences are tackled
• have a statutory duty to set a police and crime plan for their force area and a budget that focuses on working in partnership to cut crime, as well as maintaining an efficient and effective police force 
• be able to commission services from outside of the police force
• work with chief constables and local partners such as probation, health, education and local voluntary organisations to fulfil their commitments to not only fight crime and antisocial behaviour, but to prevent it, in order to deliver safer streets for their community
• be required to work with community safety and criminal justice partners - reciprocal duties in this area are deliberately broad and flexible, to allow working arrangements to develop in a way that is most meaningful locally, leaving room for innovation

PCCs will need to work with community safety partners, criminal justice agencies and the voluntary sector to help deliver what's important, locally. 

Where partnerships work well they can prevent duplication, reduce costs and tackle issues by using a joined-up approach. To be effective partnerships need to be based on action.

Reciprocal duties

Section 10 of the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011 sets out in statute the following reciprocal duties that the PCC must follow. These relate to community safety partners and criminal justice partners. The PCC:

• in exercising its functions [not just when setting priorities], must have regard to the relevant priorities of each responsible authority
• in exercising its functions, and a responsible authority, in exercising its functions under section 6 of the Crime and Disorder Act, must act in cooperation with each other
• and the criminal justice bodies in that police area, must make arrangements (so far as it is appropriate to do so) for the exercise of functions so as to provide an efficient and effective criminal justice system for the police area

Effective partnerships

The public will expect PCCs to use their mandate to lead the way; to galvanise others, challenge silos while always looking to cut crime. PCCs will be in a strong position to drive action and collaboration across a range of agencies and partnerships, and may provide an opportunity for even greater local reform.