The Birmingham Strategic Assessment provides an information led evidence based approach to assist Birmingham Community Safety Partnership with strategic decision-making and planning, helping to deliver its objectives ultimately making Birmingham a safer place to live and work. 

The implementation of a Business Process Model or framework for working within the Partnership has seen the creation of two key delivery mechanisms for the Partnership. Firstly, six Core Priority Groups (now known as Pan-Birmingham Priority Groups - PBPG) were created which are multi-agency panels that have a Birmingham wide remit to deliver across the City.

Secondly, the development of ten Local Delivery Groups (LDGs), multi-agency panels focussed on local delivery which are aligned with local Constituencies in the City.

The key message is that what can be delivered locally will be delivered locally. Each LDG identifies and implements solutions to locally determined priorities whilst having a role linking with PBPGs on issues of citywide strategic importance. The assessment is produced to provide both LDGs and PBPGs with a strong evidence base to prioritise locations either across the city as a whole or within each LDG area as well as being able to identify key themes of community safety. 

The assessment is an invaluable tool that combines powerfully with the local knowledge of practitioners and senior officials working in both PBPGs and LDGs.

The assessments are divided into four sections:

PART ONE provides an in-depth strategic view of key crime and fire types, where Police and Fire Service data is categorised according to the crime and incident types as set out in the Public Service Agreement (PSA) and Local PSA reduction plans for Birmingham as agreed with the Home Office.

The section contains ward and district tables, thematic maps, annual change, trend, temporal charts, and area analysis of key affected or hotspot areas.

PART TWO looks at the public perceptions of safety using data from two surveys: Feeling the Difference (conducted for West Midlands Police), and an Annual Opinion survey conducted by MORI (on behalf of the City Council).  It also compares the results of the most similar questions from each in relation to the Partnership’s Performance Management Framework.

PART THREE combines multi-agency data comprising of 47 different base indicators derived from the Strategy into a composite index. It provides a district and neighbourhood perspective of long-term priorities by using three years’ data (where available) to identify the over-representation against the city average.

PART FOUR combines the priority neighbourhoods with socio-economic factors from the 2001 Census and the Index of Multiple Deprivation to help evidence the link between deprivation and areas of priority in terms of crime and community safety.

The design of each assessment aims to compliment, support and enhance local neighbourhood knowledge and information enabling PBPGs and LDGs to identify community safety priorities, adding value to the decision-making process.

For the first time, detailed community safety analyses are to be made available to the public through these assessment documents. This is testament to the realisation of the Community Safety Partnership and its partner agencies of the significance and importance of openness and accountability to the communities we serve.

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