Safer Buckinghamshire Plan 2020-2023

The Safer Buckinghamshire Plan sets the framework for how the Community Safety Partnership of the unitary Buckinghamshire Council will pursue its goal of making Buckinghamshire as safe as possible.

It lists 5 priorities for the coming three years:

• Helping communities to become more resilient.
• Protecting vulnerable adults and children.
• Addressing the impact of drugs, alcohol and poor mental health.
• Tackling domestic violence and abuse.
• Dealing with offending.

Those who have participated in Chiltern Community Forum over the past 3 years will be familiar with these themes, and the work done by the Chiltern District Council’s Community Safety partnership and Thames Valley Police, alongside other agencies. Chiltern Community Forum was set up to help connect residents with this work, in particular as carried out by Neighbourhood Policing.

The Buckinghamshire Community Safety Partnership is the same thing, working on a wider scale. It is overseen by The Safer Buckinghamshire Board. The document below explains its legal obligations, the concerns highlighted by a county-wide survey in January 2020, and its strategies for dealing with the priorities set out above.

How Neighbourhood Policing Priorities will be set

Methodology for future surveys and setting Neighbourhood Policing Priorities is starting to take shape, we believe as follows:

• The surveys, kept alive in Chiltern by the Forum during 2020, will revert to Buckinghamshire’s Community Safety team, and will become countywide.
• Community Boards will lead on publicising and distributing surveys, backed by Buckinghamshire’s communications infrastructure.
• The results will then be analysed by Community Board area and considered by the Community Boards.
• For Chiltern & South Bucks Local Policing Area, Neighbourhood Policing Priorities will be set by a group comprising the seven Chairs of the CB’s or their delegates.

Taking the surveys countywide means that it will comprise a wider set of different communities with their specific issues. Bringing the results back to the individual Community Boards, or groups of Community Boards, will help focus on local issues and solutions. We still hope that the work of Chiltern Community Forum, adapted to new circumstances, can continue to play a useful role – watch this space!