Safer Barnsley Partnership

Our partnership includes statutory agencies and non-statutory groups. We meet every quarter to make sure we're working together effectively. This makes sure that Barnsley is, and feels, a safe place for everyone who lives, works and studies here.

Now more than ever it's an important time for us to work together to further strengthen our collective efforts. We'll provide a safe community for our residents, businesses and visitors. Responding well to the current cost of living crisis has made it very clear how impactful we can be by working in partnership.

About the Safer Barnsley Partnership

The Barnsley Community Safety Partnership (CSP) is a statutory partnership. They're in charge of tackling crime, reducing harm, protecting vulnerable people and reducing reoffending.

The Crime and Disorder Act 1998 and legislation after places statutory duties on CSPs to:

  • produce an annual Joint Strategic Intelligence Assessment
  • prepare and implement a Community Safety Plan
  • produce information sharing agreements
  • produce domestic homicide reviews

We're focusing on:

  • tackling crime and disorder
  • working with our partners and our borough to help our residents
  • strengthening our partnerships

Our partnership plan aligns with the legal requirement, priorities and aspirations outlined in the:

Our strategic priorities

In our plan we’re committed to delivering our strategic priorities through multi-agency delivery partnerships. Each delivery partnership works within their respective areas to deliver against specific commitments. These are:

  • Reducing violence and organised crime.
  • Increasing safe places.
  • Reducing domestic abuse.
  • Combatting drugs.
  • Increasing cohesive and resilient communities.

Commitments against each of the above areas of focus can be found in the full partnership plan.

Our partnership will also be responding to new strategies. These include:

  • The ten-year drug strategy 'From Harm to Hope'. The new Combatting Drugs Partnership has been established who will work with the Safer Barnsley Partnership.
  • Barnsley's Domestic Abuse Strategy 2021-2027.
  • The new protect duty. This focuses on making the public safer at publicly available locations.
  • The new serious violence duty. This came into force in the spring of 2023.

Our partnership is committed to tackling re-offending and rehabilitation as a priority. This is done through responses such as integrated offender management.

Engagement with the community

Working together across the partnerships remains an important aspect of our ambition. The Safer Barnsley Partnership is one part of a wider partnership that aims to make Barnsley a great place to live.

The Safer Barnsley Partnership will continue to undertake the broader campaigns of public consultation. This will be part of its Joint Strategic Intelligence Assessment process. This will create more chances to inform our priority setting work for the community. Our engagement with the community will be within the limitations of any restrictions that may exist to safeguard the public.

Partnership priorities

Our key commitments will be delivered through the partnership's five sub-groups. The list below details each sub-group's priorities. This informs their commitments, which can be found in the full plan.

Safe places

  • Anti-social behaviour
  • Environmental crime
  • Neighbourhood crime

Violence and organised crime

  • Violence against women and girls
  • Serious violence duty
  • Organised crime and offender management

Combatting drugs

  • Drug supply
  • Prevention and education
  • Treatment and recovery

Domestic abuse

  • Domestic abuse

Cohesive and resilient communities

  • Hate crime
  • Community tension
  • Prevent

Cross-cutting commitments for all sub-groups to focus on

  • Re-offending and rehabilitation
  • Engagement and communication

Getting the right support

Working together remains a vital part of our goals. Actions are taken across many partnerships and their sub-groups. Progress and key issues linked to community safety are reported into the Safer Barnsley Partnership Board.

The Safer Barnsley Partnership Board is one part of a wider partnership. They aim to make Barnsley the place of possibilities. The Safer Barnsley Partnership Board works with other key partnerships, such as the following:

This makes sure there's a joint approach to help communities solve problems early and to focus resources where and when needed. This arrangement is facilitated by the inter-partnership joint working protocol. This approach to community safety makes sure that the right help is given at the right time in the right place.

Our partners

Our Safer Barnsley Partnership includes a range of partners. It includes:

Key achievements and case studies

Housing

Partners have been targeting housing locations where anti-social behaviour is a problem.

Despite the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Safer Neighbourhoods Service have tackled anti-social behaviour linked to houses in multiple occupation. This made sure that behaviour standards are managed promptly and effectively.

The Environmental Task Force has delivered interventions to address damage. This saw improvements in parts of the borough. This includes Royston, Goldthorpe and Grimethorpe.

Homelessness

A lot of progress has been made in creating effective accommodation. A support pathway has also been created. This helps people who are frequently rough sleeping. It includes people who are often associated with anti-social behaviour, begging and substance misuse in Barnsley town centre. As a result, rough sleeping numbers have fallen during the year. Support includes:

  • more managed accommodation with intensive support
  • the revamping of a multi-faced Homeless Alliance
  • delivery of regular assertive outreach on the streets of Barnsley

CCTV

During 2020/2021 we continued to provide fully integrated CCTV across the borough. This has been put in place across the town centre and our principal towns. It's reassuring that the state of the art CCTV is connected to the central police control room. Areas now covered include:

  • Barnsley town centre
  • Hoyland town centre
  • Wombwell town centre
  • Goldthorpe town centre
  • Cudworth Centre of Excellence and Cudworth high street
  • Goldthorpe Embankment Project
  • all town centre car parks

There are also plans to add CCTV coverage to Thurnscoe and Worsbrough Mill car park.

Anti-social behaviour with young people

Anti-social behaviour associated with groups of young people has remained a challenge. Work has identified early where issues are emerging.

We've deployed neighbourhood wardens and community resilience officers (formerly COVID-19 marshals) to locations where there was concern. Also, stronger connections have been made with our Targeted Youth Support Service. This makes sure early intervention and support to young people is targeted in the right locations.

Joining Forces

  • Communicating with the public the ways in which we keep people safe in our town centre. This is alongside our town centre newsletter which is published on our Joining Forces webpage.
  • Expanding the reach of the Joining Forces team (a network of uniform services). This makes sure all service personnel are fully aligned to maintain safe and pleasant environments in the town centre.
  • Investing resources to improve the visual street scene.

Litter picking

Volunteers and residents were concerned about ongoing littering. It took place on a two mile stretch of road between Cudworth and Darfield. The aim was to clear litter and fly-tipping.

  • Road closures were needed. First aid support was booked over the period.
  • The North-East Area Team liaised with volunteers and other services. They gave out litter picking tools and safety wear. They set up and manned zones on the day.
  • Barnsley Community Build and neighbourhood services cleared back overgrown areas to make them safe. They collected purple bags of litter and removed fly-tipping.

Along with volunteers and residents, we saw adults, children, councillors, MPs, the North East Area Team, council staff and litter pickers from around the borough. The area council will be looking at steps to prevent the ongoing litter issue in the area.

  • 74 volunteers took part in the events.
  • Five tonnes of waste was removed.
  • 350 sacks of litter were filled.

Litter campaign - Dearne Area Council - Dearne North, Dearne South

We took into account the results from the area council's community listening event, and listened to elected members' concerns. The area team concluded that education was needed around littering and fly-tipping in the Dearne. Both issues had worsened during COVID-19 due to reduced workers.

The aim was to educate the community and reduce the amount of litter in the area. We did this by:

  • involving children and young people with 'design a poster' sessions to encourage using a rubbish bin.
  • providing advice on community boards and to groups. These explain the rates of decomposition of rubbish.

Results:

  • There were 41 entries in the competition from children, young people and adults. All entries received a goody bag at the autumn fair.
  • Increased relationships with local schools, communities and voluntary groups.
  • Positive impact on mental health.
  • Positive feedback from parents.
  • Continued education around littering will help reduce environmental crime in the future.

Substance misuse

Domestic abuse

Multiple needs

We're stronger together

We've continued to work with and celebrate our amazing and diverse community in Barnsley. It makes our town a wonderful place to live.

This includes links and relationships with:

  • LGBTQI+ community
  • Latvian community
  • Muslim community and the mosque
  • Ukraine community through the Homes for Ukrainian programme
  • other migrant communities living in Barnsley

Community Iftar

We had the first ever Community Iftar at the mosque in Barnsley on 25 April 2022. Our senior representatives came together to break the fast at the mosque. We listened to the call for prayers and the prayers. It was a great evening.

Multi-agency drop-in

We've established a multi-agency drop-in for asylum seekers, refugees and migrants in Barnsley. This happens every Wednesday in the town centre.

No Place for Hate

We've launched the No Place for Hate campaign and promoted this across the partnership and borough. The cohesive and resilient communities group will continue to use No Place for Hate. This will promote community cohesion online, offline and in education.

Black History Month

E is 44 years old and has lived in Barnsley for 18 months. She helped with different activities throughout Black History Week in October 2021. This included students from the Educational Learning Support Hub (ELSH), the local community and network groups.