Home Office calls for areas to lead the way with neighbourhood agreements

The government is calling for ten areas to pioneer new neighbourhood agreements on community safety and justice between police, councils and residents.

The Home Office said the pathfinders would require police, councils and other agencies to agree service standards with local residents, who could then hold them to account.

The government claimed that, as a result of the agreements, residents would also have a say in how community safety and justice issues are tackled, build better relationships with local service providers, and understand better what services they are entitled to and how they can be improved.

Joint applications from councils and police forces will be considered by a cross-departmental selection panel. The ten pathfinder areas will be independently evaluated before the scheme is introduced elsewhere in England and Wales in the spring of 2011.

The launch of neighbourhood agreements follows the experience of the Department for Communities and Local Government in introducing community contracts. Earlier this month the Communities Secretary, John Denham, said councils should sign these contracts as a way of driving up the standard of local services.

The move also comes just after the government released research which revealed that fewer than one in five residents in its priority areas believe the problem of anti-social behaviour has got better in the last 12 months. Ministers have nevertheless insisted that the government’s approach is working.

Policing and Crime Minister David Hanson said: “Neighbourhood agreements will be a key part of how the police and other local agencies can work with communities to meet this aim. This pathfinder scheme is a great opportunity for people to make their neighbourhoods better places to live and to play a key role in shaping policing in England and Wales.”