With seven years’ experience as a neighbourhood warden, this week’s interviewee now manages a team of wardens in a major English city
"I manage 11 people – 10 neighbourhood wardens and a support officer – who work to tackle antisocial behaviour, reduce the fear of crime and improve social inclusion in the community.
Our patch is divided into two main parts: east and west. The west is more affluent than the east, where there is a high concentration of social housing. In the east, the average income is £17,000 and around 40 per cent of the residents are ethnic minorities; in the west, the average income is £34,000.
Our team is popular with local residents: when we carry out surveys in the community, many people ask for wardens on the streets and in the estates. But money is scarce: despite the many funding streams in Britain, neighbourhood warden teams could be better financed.
Originally, our funding came from central government, but it ended in 2006 and since then we’ve been financed by the local authority and housing associations. The council does apply for other government grants, but as a whole our local authority area is fairly safe, so we’re not eligible for the Home Office grants based on levels of deprivation and crime rates.
Still, the situation is better here than in other countries where I’ve worked. I’ve spent time in African countries and, while many countries have systems of government that are loosely based on Britain’s, it’s not always the case that no-one is above the rule of law. Here, people can’t influence government for personal gain. What’s more, in some countries the central government controls the vast majority of the money; in the UK, funds can be accessed from local government and other organisations as well.
However, there are a lot of targets here. National indicators are set by the Home Office and the Audit Commission. We have to respond to incidents within 24 hours, for example, and to provide victim support. The fact that these targets have expanded while our funding has not means that we’re trying to stretch the same money over an increasing number of responsibilities. And we’re being watched very closely: the commission has started running a Comprehensive Area Assessment system, which evaluates our service alongside all kinds of other public services. This also increases transparency; there’s a website called Oneplace where people can see how well we are doing.
Still, I’m not convinced that all of these national indicators necessarily translate into improvements to people’s lives. For example, the Audit Commission’s targets for reducing burglaries don’t help to solve the problem of burglary. We need to target the root cause of burglary, not burglary itself: much of the crime is linked to drugs, but the targets concentrate on reducing burglaries and they can push us, for example, towards working to improve the security of people’s homes, rather than working with local drug addicts and tracking down dealers.
Meanwhile, the Audit Commission provides guidelines on partnership arrangements with the fire service, NHS and police, and the Improvement and Development Agency for local government (IDeA) publishes good practice information on how to improve community safety and policing matters. This is helpful, as Section 17 of the Crime and Disorder Act of 1998 makes it clear that organisations should work together to deliver public services. As a result of the new multi-agency approach, the IDeA and Audit Commission work with the Home Office on community safety; and if we need advice, we can just pick up the phone for help.
On the other hand, better partnership working with different agencies can leave it unclear as to who is responsible for particular issues; for example, when the Audit Commission and IDeA recommended the establishment of a hotline for victims of antisocial behaviour, we had to ask how it would be funded.
Furthermore, the growth in legislation has had unintended consequences: the new Policing Bill of 2009 made it mandatory to carry out checks on people applying to work in voluntary services. I know the intention is to protect people, but the result has been to increase our workload and make it difficult for us to recruit volunteers for community events.
If I had the chance to speak directly to the government’s ministers and officials, I would tell them to consult frontline staff when making policy. Their policies are well-intentioned, but they can be counter-productive if they end up making life harder for those on the front line."