The Barnsley Local Partnership Team (LPT) model has been in place since February 2004 although the concept has been tested for 2 – 3 years. The model comprises five LPT areas, which align themselves with the five Local Authority Forum areas. These LPT’s allow key players in the extended policing family to work under one roof and share resources for the purpose of providing a safer and stronger community. The move to LPT did not reduce the traditional police response capability but allowed the LPT members to work proactively in response to community needs.
Each LPT in Barnsley consists of :
A police Inspector
Sergeant
Police Constables
Special Constables
Tasking officer
Neighbourhood/street wardens
PCSO’s
The LPT is supplemented by an overarching District-wide Neighbourhood safety Unit (NSU) that consists of a full time solicitor, tenancy enforcement officers and police officers. This unit would probably equate to what many regard as an anti-social behaviour team.
Together both teams provide an all encompassing, intelligence led problem solving approach to non urgent response incidents linked into the NIM.
There are several interesting points in the Barnsley model:
Building resources are shared – all are under one roof – with shared briefing facilities
Other resources are in many cases shared – e.g. lease vehicles – IT systems
Intelligence is shared
There is REAL joint tasking linked to the National Intelligence Model (NIM)
The tasking officer in each LPT is a council employee
The tasking officer has access to police and Council IT/intelligence systems
There is multi agency intelligence gathering feeding into NIM
The Government Office for Yorkshire and The Humber has recognised the potential of the Barnsley LPT model and it is currently being independently evaluated and the findings will be reported in due course.
