An evaluation of community safety projects funded by PCC Sue Mountstevens has found thousands of people have been helped through prevention, support and intervention work.
In collaboration with community safety partnerships across Avon and Somerset Police Crime Commissioner Sue Mountstevens spent over £2.3 million funding a range of projects and services in 2014/15.
An evaluation has found that almost 3,000 at risk young people have been supported through prevention and early intervention activity, with 176 high risk young people receiving more targeted support.
Over 340 people with substance misuse needs have been supported through treatment services, while 4,237 offenders with drug misuse needs received treatment by a new single
‘Arrest Intervention and Referral’ service offering offenders referral to treatment from police custody in order to break the cycle of addiction and offending.
853 survivors of domestic abuse received support through the Independent Domestic Violence Advisors including family intervention work and access to dedicated programmes, while 10 perpetrators of domestic abuse also received support through a structured one to one programme.
The single Independent Sexual Violence Advice service helped 646 victims of sexual abuse and 12 people involved in sexually harmful behaviours.
A project supporting hate crime victims across Bath and North East Somerset, Bristol and South Gloucestershire helped 179 people, and 200 victims of anti-social behaviour received support through a range of projects in Somerset, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire.
Of the 51 projects that were evaluated the Commissioner’s team found that eight projects fell marginally short of delivering expectations for the year and one project fell significantly short, although this is currently being addressed.
Police and Crime Commissioner Sue Mountstevens said: “Working in collaboration with the local authority community safety partnerships the grant is supporting locally-driven community safety activities which are providing long-term, sustainable positive activities for young people, helping to help reduce anti-social behaviour, providing treatment for people with substance misuse and supporting people affected by domestic or sexual abuse.
“These are exactly the type of activities that reassure and improve the quality of life in local areas and it could not be achieved without the hard-work and dedication of many charities, councils and communities.”
Cllr Martin Veal, Cabinet member with responsibility for community safety at Bath & North East Somerset Council said: “I am delighted that the Council is working closely with the Police and Crime Commissioner and other partners on local community safety projects that really change people’s lives, particularly working to help victims of domestic and sexual abuse and hate crime.
“Our local partners tell us that having access to these funding streams is vital in attracting joint investment into our local services. An excellent example of this is the Health and PCC joint funding to kick-start the IRIS project which helps GPs provide a better service to victims of domestic abuse”
The responsibility for administering the community safety grant and allocating it to local authorities transferred from the Home Office to police and crime commissioners in April 2013.
This is the first evaluation report since the changes.
