Edition 6: Violent Youth Crime
NLGN’s Leadership Index is a quarterly survey sent to all chief executives, leaders and council mayors in the UK. It provides insight into the level of confidence on key issues affecting local government.
Additionally, NLGN Leadership Index August 2019 asked local government leaders how violent youth crime was affecting their local areas.
Key findings from the NLGN Leadership Index August 2019 include:
- Councils are not sufficiently resourced to address violent youth crime. 75 per cent of all council chief executives, leaders and mayors disagreed that current levels of funding from central government are sufficient for their council and public sector partners to address violent youth crime. Looking at Metropolitan and London Borough councils only, this figure rises to 85 per cent.
- Violent youth crime is increasing. NLGN Leadership Index August 2019 asked respondents how violent youth crime has changed in their areas over the last five years. 61 per cent of respondents said that it had increased. Again, the picture worsens when looking at Metropolitan and London Borough councils only – with 85 per cent of these respondents stating that they had seen an increase over the last five years.
- Increasing violent youth crime is occurring among a narrow group of offences. From a list of offence types there were three were selected by respondents as the offence that had risen the most: anti-social behaviour, drug offences and gang-linked violence.
- Prevention and early intervention are needed. When asked what major change would allow their councils and public sector partners to address violent youth crime more effectively many of the comments focussed on the need to provide investment to prevent crime. Youth services were mentioned in this regard, for example. Targeted intervention was also a key theme that emerged in response to this question.
- Confidence in powers and resources to meet the needs of social services is low. Since the previous quarter, councils’ confidence to meet adult social care and children’s services needs has dropped – by 13 per cent and 11 per cent respectively.
NLGN Leadership Index survey includes 12 recurring questions across three key themes – economy, society and environment – and a series of topical questions which focus on current events affecting local government.
A full report of the results from the August 2019 survey can be downloaded HERE.
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