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MORE THAN 100 NEW BUSINESS CRIME PARTNERSHIPS FORMED IN FIRST TWO YEARS |
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Monday, 04 September 2006 |
More than 100 new business crime reduction partnerships have been created from scratch by Action Against Business Crime (AABC) in its first two years, more than one a week.
Marking its second anniversary today (Friday 1 September) AABC - a unique collaboration between the Home Office and British Retail Consortium - is announcing it has overtaken the targets it was set, forming 106 crime-beating partnerships for less than £8,500 each.
Lord Dear, Chairman of AABC said, "This has been a really tremendous achievement. We have had very limited resources but the Home Office and police now have a network of working business crime partnerships to help them reduce crime and disorder in our towns and cities. They are all self-funding and are here for the long-term."
Business crime reduction partnerships are structured membership organisations. They share information about crime and criminals via radio links, CCTV, information and photograph sharing agreements with police. They use exclusion notice schemes, banning known thieves and trouble-makers from the premises of all members in a partnership.
To create each partnership AABC had to convince organisations, including businesses, police and local authorities, that the best way to deal with town centre business crime and disorder was to work together in a co-ordinated partnership.
Mike Schuck, Chief Executive of AABC said, "We have created a unique system of partnerships in this country which is the envy of overseas visitors. Increasingly the partnerships, and police, are linked to our national database, which is providing real-time intelligence on business crime. We want to develop the partnership system further and increase our ability to contribute to crime reduction and community safety in the future."
Before AABC began in 2004 it had taken nearly 10 years to create the first 100 partnerships. The rapid expansion achieved since then means there are now over 200 business partnerships in England and Wales with over 30,000 business members. They are collaborating to reduce crime and disorder and to make their towns, safer and more pleasant places to work, visit and live in.
Notes to editors: AABC is a partnership between the Home Office and the British Retail Consortium.
Its service level agreement with the Home Office required AABC to create 100 partnerships in 2 years. AABC and its four regional business crime managers have created 106 partnerships in towns and cities across England and Wales in that time.
All partnerships are notified to the Information Commissioner to enable them to share data about people and all work to strict criteria established and periodically inspected by AABC
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