Why is Vale safe? (From Penarth Times)

Why is Vale safe?

THE VALE council has promised: "We will do better", after being told by experts that its community safety service was not up to scratch.

The Vale is one of the safest areas of Britain, with crime levels falling. But the Audit Commission says the problem with the council is that it does not know why this is.

Nor does it really know how far its own crime reduction strategy has contributed to this fall.

On a scale of zero to four, with four at the top, the inspectors gave the council a score of only one.

But on the bright side, it accepted that the service is getting better.

Positive issues include:

* The council has taken action to tackle the fear of crime.

* Crime has been reduced by 30 percent over the past three years and still shows a downward trend.

But the report identified a number of significant weaknesses:

* Graffiti is not being cleaned up unless part of a planned programme.

* Some aspects of community safety legislation are not sufficiently understood throughout the council.

The inspectors felt the service is probably going to improve in future, because there is evidence of closer working between the council and the police.

The inspectors recommended more consultation the business community and analysis of the reasons for the fall in crime.

A council spokesman said: "The council is confident a great deal of progress will be made on community safety.

"The report assessed the service as 'fair and probably going to improve'. Although it is dated January 2002, the inspection took place ten months ago. In that time, significant progress has been made on addressing many of the issues in the review and a subsequent action plan."