§ The Minister for Crime Reduction, Policing and Community Safety (Ms Hazel Blears)Through the Building Safer Communities Fund I am making a total of £74 million directly available to local Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships in 2004–05, to assist them in delivering their crime reduction and drugs priorities in the light of local needs.
This will be the second year of the Building Safer Communities Fund, and builds on the progress made in 2003–04. I remain keen to help local Partnerships to focus on reducing crime through having one crime reduction funding stream, with an emphasis on less paperwork. This fund will continue to assist in strengthening Partnerships' capacity to deliver.
The money can again be used n a variety of ways and Partnerships are showing that they can use their programme funding to deliver a wide range of interventions. They are using it to reduce gun crime; to disrupt drugs markets through direct police work; running activities designed to divert children from getting involved in crime and drugs; paying for more CCTV cameras or targeted campaigns on particular crimes or drugs hotspots; or for warden schemes. These are just examples and the views of the community are key to inform local decisions.
102WSI want to continue to give Partnerships the resources and flexibility to target investment where it will reduce crime and deliver real change on the ground, in accordance with local priorities. The single fund will enable local agencies on the front line to boost the work they do to tackle crime and drug abuse.