Call for cross-government crime reduction body

The proposal, put forward by the Local Government Association (LGA) to the Commons Justice Select Committee’s inquiry into crime reduction, would include Department of Health and Department for Education ministers working alongside the Ministry of Justice on youth justice matters.

Joanna Spicer, vice-chair of the LGA’s safer and stronger communities board, told MPs that the move was needed due to the links between crime, mental health and school problems such as truancy.

She said: “There is a need for joined-up thinking on crime prevention and the opportunity to ensure that all the initiatives, for example by the Department for Education around school truancy and in the Department of Health around mental health, link up and work together.”

She added the move would lead to the development of more cross-government programmes such as the Troubled Families initiative, where multi-agency support is used to tackle a range of problems affecting families with complex needs.

Top-level co-ordination is especially important as reorganisation of health services have made it difficult for councils and the NHS to work together, said Spicer.

“We’ve had to recognise considerable change in the NHS over the last year, including the move to clinical commissioning, which has made it difficult to keep the same people at the same table. That reorganisation has set back progress,” she added.