Chapter 4: Building responsible and secure communities

This Government is committed to secure and healthy communities in which everyone takes responsibility for their actions, has the opportunity to participate in their community and has a chance to enjoy quality of life.

To build responsible and secure communities this Review:

tackles crime with increases in police spending of 3.8 per cent a year in real terms over the next three years to cut vehicle crime by 30 per cent, burglaries by 25 per cent, and robberies in our principal cities by 14 per cent;
tackles the problem of drug abuse at its roots through more treatment and prevention, with total funding increasing by an average of 10 per cent a year in real terms;
provides the longest period of sustained funding growth for the NHS in its history
6.1 per cent real growth per year over four years from 1999-2000, as announced in Budget 2000, in return for modernisation and reform;
promotes independence, rehabilitation and care close to home for the elderly as part of a strategy for better social services to be announced in the National Plan for the NHS;
initiates a strategy to move towards one million more people getting involved in their communities;
enriches education through extending cultural, sporting and creative opportunities for children; and
improves the environment by delivering cleaner air, fewer greenhouse gas emissions and increased recycling of household waste.

Fighting crime and building safer communities

4.1 Reducing the level of crime and protecting the public from its harmful effects are central to creating a decent society. Everyone should be able to live in safety and security without fear of crime. The Government has therefore set targets to reduce the crimes which affect people most - having their homes or cars broken into.

4.2 Crime targets will be delivered by the police who are working together with local authorities in a network of 376 Crime and Disorder Partnerships tackling crime across England and Wales:

police spending will rise by an average of 3.8 per cent a year in real terms over the next three years; and
the work of the Crime and Disorder Partnerships will be supported by funds for better information systems to assist in identifying crime problems and in drawing up plans to deal with them.

Box 4.1: Key PSA targets - building responsible and secure communities

Fighting crime and illegal drugs

Reduce the key recorded crime categories of:
vehicle crime by 30 per cent by 2004;
domestic burglary by 25 per cent, with no local authority area having a rate more than three times the national average, by 2005; and
robbery in our principal cities by 14 per cent by 2005.
Ensure by 2004 that the levels of fear of crime in the key categories of violent crime, burglary and car crime reported in the British Crime Survey (BCS), are lower than the levels reported in the 2001 BCS.
By 2005 reduce by 25 per cent (and by 50 per cent by 2008): the availability of class A drugs; the proportion of under-25s reporting the use of these drugs; and the levels of repeat offending amongst drug-abusing offenders.
Increase the participation of problem drug abusers in drug treatment programmes by 55 per cent by 2004, by 66 per cent by 2005 and by 100 per cent by 2008.

Active communities

Make substantial progress by 2004 towards one million more people being actively involved in their communities.
Improving access for all to sport and culture
Increase by 500,000 by 2004 the number of people experiencing the arts. Raise significantly, year on year, the average time spent on sport and physical activity by those aged 5 to 16.
Increase the numbers of children attending museums and galleries by a third by 2004.

A better environment

Improve air quality by meeting our National Air Quality Strategy targets for carbon monoxide, lead, nitrogen dioxide, particles, sulphur dioxide, benzene and 1-3 butadiene.
Improve the environment and the sustainable use of natural resources, including by reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 121/2 per cent from 1990 levels, and by moving towards a 20 per cent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions, by 2010.
Enable 17 per cent of household waste to be recycled or composted by 2004.
Open up public access to all mountain, moor, heath and down and registered common land by the end of 2005.

4.3 There will be further support for reducing crime from programmes tackling truancy, raising standards of literacy and numeracy amongst the bottom 20 per cent of attainers, investing in mental health services, and improving education and health services in prisons. More details on the cross-departmental reviews of the Criminal Justice System and of Crime Reduction are in Chapters 27 and 28.

4.4 Illegal drugs - particularly the most dangerous ones such as heroin and cocaine - pose a major threat to the well-being of our communities. Each year 1,000 to 3,000 people die as a result of drug abuse. And drug abusers account for up to a third of all crime, in particular property crime. The Government is taking action to tackle the problem at source through:

increased investment totalling 10 per cent a year on average in real terms in drug treatment and other anti-drug programmes centred around interventions that work: treatment and prevention. The evidence¹ shows that effective treatment yields a social benefit of between 3 to 7 times the initial spend;
more effective partnership working, centred on a new National Treatment Agency and an expanded central anti-drugs unit equipped to drive forward an integrated strategy with partners in Government departments, Local Authorities, Customs, the Police and other agencies.

4.5 Taken together these measures will help secure effective delivery of the Government's ten year Strategy on Illegal Drugs, focused on:

reducing the prevalence of drug use amongst young people;
cutting both drugs-related crime in our communities and the availability on our streets of the most serious drugs by a quarter by 2005 and by a half by 2008; and
doubling the number of problem addicts receiving treatment over the same timescale.

4.6 More details are in Chapter 29 on the cross-departmental review on Illegal Drugs.

Building a healthy society

4.7 The NHS is a key service for all communities across Britain. It is unique in that it is the one service that almost everyone will use at some point in their lives, and essential in that it ensures that every UK citizen has access to healthcare based on need and not ability to pay.

4.8 In Budget 2000 the Chancellor announced substantial additional resources for the NHS in the current financial year, and brought forward the announcement of new spending plans for the following three years giving by far the biggest, most sustained growth of any four year period in NHS history. The package provides for 6.1 per cent average annual real terms growth in the UK over four years from 1999-2000, as announced in Budget 2000, compared to an average 3.3 per cent since the foundation of the NHS and 2.9 per cent annual real growth between 1978-79 and 1996-97.

4.9 The Government made clear at the time of Budget 2000 that the new investment in the NHS needed to be accompanied by reform to deal with unacceptable variations in performance between different parts of the NHS. On 22 March, the Prime Minister made a statement to the House of Commons setting out the challenges facing the NHS and proposing a review of how best to tackle poor performance in NHS and drive up standards. The Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Health will shortly announce the results of work on each of these challenges, and a National Plan which will reform and modernise the NHS, tackling poor performance and driving up standards. It will support a process of change which will improve fairness between communities which at present have different quality health care because of differences in the way services are organised and managed.

4.10 The Plan will map out the ways in which variations in quality and types of service will be overcome, and will set out the priorities for investment.

Better social services

4.11 The National Plan for the NHS will also include priorities for investment in social services and will set out the targets for delivering high quality social services care, in particular for the elderly and children in care. Good joint working with the NHS is crucial to ensure effective health and social care to communities throughout the UK.

4.12 This Review provides a significant increase in social care and related services funding in order to:

promote higher quality care, rehabilitation and care close to home for the elderly, as part of the Government's response to the Royal Commission on Long Term Care;
improve life chances for children in care; and
improve mental health care by implementing nationally the best practice standards in the National Service Framework on Mental Health.

4.13 As a result of the cross-departmental review of Care and Support for Older People the Government will pilot a 'Care Direct' phone line to provide help and advice on all aspects of their care to the elderly, their relatives and carers. This will explore ways to address the complexity and poor coordination of services which the elderly often face. More details of the review are in Chapter 31.

Stronger communities

4.14 Volunteering and helping each other out are central to healthy, democratic, and socially-inclusive communities. The Government wants to see substantial progress by 2004 towards one million more people being involved in their communities. A cross-departmental review on the Active Community was set up to look at how to deliver this and details are set out in Chapter 30. New arrangements will be established for training and accrediting mentors. There will be greater use of volunteers to support the delivery of quality services in health, education and other areas important to our communities. There will be particular emphasis where appropriate on mobilising older volunteers to act as an 'Experience Corps'.

Getting the most out of life

Sport and culture

4.15 The Government is committed to helping people get more out of life. This Spending Review provides for enhanced opportunities to participate in sporting and cultural activities in particular in schools. It builds on the recent investment in sports facilities with a step change in high quality sports teaching, coaching and competitive sport in schools. There will also be a greater emphasis on enriching education, through extending cultural and creative opportunities for children. The Review continues the theme of engaging wider audiences in the arts and in museums and galleries. Allocations of resources from the New Opportunities Fund for sport and culture will also be announced in due course.

Improving the environment

4.16 The state of the environment is crucial for the good quality of life that we expect for both current and future generations. Air and water quality affect everyone's daily lives and without concerted action the effects of climate change over the next century could be far- reaching. In addition, we need to deal with the growing amount of waste generated each year.

4.17 Protecting the environment and making prudent use of natural resources are central to achieving sustainable development (see Box 4.2). The new spending plans increase funding in key areas:

the Ten Year Plan for Transport will reduce transport emissions of the main greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, and improve local air quality by reducing emissions of pollutants such as nitrogen dioxide and particulates. Public investment in transport will more than double in real terms by 2003-04 to over £6 billion a year;
greenhouse gas emissions will be further reduced by increased funding for renewable energy; a Carbon Trust to give energy efficiency advice to business and encourage low carbon technologies; and incentives for business to join a domestic emissions trading scheme;
new money on top of additional funds for local councils will ensure that at least 17 per cent of household waste is recycled or composted by 2004;
there will be better protection of the countryside through a shift from production subsidies to deliver environmental improvements in agriculture;
greater access to open country and better services in rural areas will enable everyone to enjoy the countryside (further details are in Chapter 32 on the cross-departmental review of Rural and Countryside Programmes); and
threats to our environment will be reduced through our contribution to international efforts to support nuclear clean-up in the Former Soviet Union. Details of the cross-departmental review of Nuclear Safety in the Former Soviet Union are in Chapter 37.

Box 4.2: Sustainable development

Rising productivity and economic growth must not be at the expense of the environment. Sustainable development is therefore an important theme throughout this Spending Review. This means ensuring a better quality of life for everyone, both now and for generations to come. The Government's sustainable development strategy sets out four key objectives:

social progress which recognises the needs of everyone;
effective protection of the environment;
prudent use of natural resources; and
maintenance of high and stable levels of economic growth and employment.

Major investments in health and education will promote opportunity and security for all. There is a range of measures in place to tackle child poverty, crime and unemployment and to provide higher investment in health and education.

Environmental protection will be strengthened by significant new investment in public transport, reduced greenhouse gas emissions, more sustainable agricultural practices and better countryside protection. Targets have been set to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve air quality.

Improved use of natural resources will be delivered by measures to boost business energy efficiency; new housing will increasingly move to recycled land or will re-use existing buildings; and there will be higher levels of household waste recycling.

The Government has developed a set of 15 'headline' indicators of sustainable development, to give an overview of progress. The new spending plans and PSA targets provide the funding and commitment to deliver improvement across the whole range of headline indicators. A baseline assessment of the indicators, Quality of Life Counts, identified a number of areas which had moved in an unsustainable direction since 1990. The Spending Review has addressed these areas. In particular this chapter has set out the plans for improvements in tackling crime, better protection of the countryside and recycling a higher proportion of household waste.