§ Mr. LammyTo ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions if he will make a statement on his assessment of the performance of New Deal for Communities programmes. [15994]
§ Ms KeebleThere are 39 New Deal for Communities (NDC) partnerships. The performance of each partnership is currently assessed through an annual review in February each year. The 17 Round 1 Pathfinder partnerships were assessed in February 2001. The Round 2 partnerships were not assessed, as their delivery phase did not begin until April 2001.
The NDC Programme has begun to have some positive impacts. For example, in the Sandwell NDC area in the West Midlands there has been an overall reduction in robberies of 48 per cent. since April 2001. East Manchester NDC has recorded a 30 per cent. reduction in crime following implementation of a crime reduction strategy. In the Haringey NDC area between April and August 2001 soliciting and loitering were down 57 per cent. on the same period last year.