This Police Foundation Briefing provides an introduction to Safer School Partnerships, examining their purpose and effectiveness, and draws attention to some of the key issues. It will also look at the increasing involvement of police officers in and around schools and in particular the development of Safer School Partnerships (SSPs).

The Future Of Safer School Partnerships

The Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill, which received Royal Assent in September 2011(40), means that from next year every police force will be accountable to an elected Police and Crime Commissioner. This will be the first time in the history of British policing that local policing priorities will be determined by a directly elected individual at the local level.

Alongside this, following the government's Spending Review(41), the police service will have to manage close to a 20 per cent reduction in funding from central government over the next four years. With 80 per cent of the police budget going towards staff costs, this is likely to lead to a reduction in frontline officers.

Thus the future of SSPs, like many areas of policing, will come under scrutiny as Police Forces across the country adapt to the changing financial and legislative environment they are now facing.

Given these new developments, it is important to consider how the spirit of SSPs might be maintained even if police officers were deployed away from the role. This might range from having an explicitly-identified liaison person in both the school and the local police so that communication could be continued, albeit with less officer face time, to putting schools onto the beat of neighbourhood policing teams so that they are regularly visited and pupils remain accustomed to seeing police or PCSO uniforms around.

Conclusion

Good SSPs can improve feelings of safety as well as reducing truancy and victimisation rates; however they depend heavily on the aptitude of individual officers. Officers need to have good interpersonal skills and be able to work with the school, deferring to staff authority on non-criminal matters of school discipline.

One concern is that although the original purpose of introducing police presence in schools was the reduction of crime and antisocial behaviour, the role has been widened to encompass identification of risk factors pointing towards future bad behaviour or extremism. This area should be approached with caution – identification is a difficult task requiring appropriate training and understanding of the triggers to disruptive behaviour as well as some knowledge of child psychology. Care must be taken to ensure that children do not feel discriminated against or labelled because of their family background.

Finally, it is worth remembering that most schools are well-ordered, crime-free environments where children come to learn and that some level of disruption should be viewed as normal childish behaviour rather than a sign of future criminality.

About The Police Foundation

The Police Foundation is the only independent charity focused entirely on developing people's knowledge and understanding of policing and challenging the police service and the government to improve policing for the benefit of the public. The Police Foundation acts as a bridge between the public, the police and the government, while being owned by none of them.

For more information about The Police Foundation, click here

Notes and references

40. HM Government (2011) Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011, London: The Stationery Office

41. HM Treasury (2010) Spending Review 2010, London: The Stationery Office