7 - Partnerships

Summary

Introduction

Partnerships are central to neighbourhood policing. As seen in the last chapter, problem-solving in particular cannot be effectively undertaken alone. It is reliant on the police working closely with partner agencies whose responsibility it is to respond to many of the issues that are raised with the police. Residents do not always distinguish between the specific responsibilities of the police as opposed to local councils, for example. In raising issues, they are stating the existence of a problem that is affecting their sense of safety in their community. Good neighbourhood policing should therefore respond to these issues on these terms, while ensuring that these problems are passed to the partners who can resolve them.

Involving partners in crime prevention work has been encouraged in British policing since the 1984 issue of Home Office Circular 8/84 (Singer, 2004; Bullock and Tilley, 2009), which stated that many of the factors involved in crime were outside the control of the police, and thus ‘all those agencies whose policies and practices can influence the extent of crime should make their contribution’ (Home Office, 1984, cited in Singer, 2004). However, the last couple of decades has seen enormous growth in partnership working, to the point where it is now institutionalised.

This chapter begins with an account of that institutionalisation in policy, legislation and guidance, and the requirements placed on forces now to work in concert with other agencies. It unravels the narrative of partnership working from the early 1980s onwards, and describes the broad benefits that it was believed partnership work could provide for the police and other agencies.

Partnerships have now been embedded for sufficient time to have a good idea from research evidence about what makes them work effectively. The next section therefore looks at partnerships in practice, and the centrality of trust and continuity to ensure good relationships. Much evidence points to the importance of informal connections; and the chapter touches on the strengths and weaknesses of co-location as one means of embedding this. The chapter also looks at the problems inherent in partnership work, from the inconsistency in relationships that can stem from abstraction, to the difficulty of managing multiple expectations.