Getting to grips with the new disorder bill

And the national legislation, which is currently going through Parliament, will mean some fairly intense work for Essex Police over the next couple of years.

Stemming from two consultation documents - the Morgan Report 1991 and Getting to Grips with Crime 1997 - the Bill aims to address offending behaviour and reduce crime in two ways.

Firstly it requires forces across the country to create statutory multi-agency partnerships. Secondly it looks to make improvements within the criminal justice system.

Each division within Essex will need to form 'leadership groups' comprising the divisional commander, Chief Executive of the local council and a representative from Essex County Council.

Supt Peter Sheldrake, explained: "The idea of the leadership groups is to work with different agencies to develop a strategy for dealing with crime and anti-social behaviour in their particular areas."

Once these groups are in place there is a timetable for other recommendations of the Bill to be implemented.

Changes will include a new national cautioning policy, a fast track system requiring youths to be put before the courts quicker and will remove the defence of 'ignorance' among 10-14 year old offenders. A further recommendation is the introduction of youth justice and offenders teams who will work with family units to help prevent offending and re-offending, coupled with a reform of the Youth Courts.

Mr Sheldrake, said: "All the divisions need to actively partake in work with agencies locally and form leadership groups. But the youth side is still being looked at centrally and there is no great rush. It will be slowly and carefully planned and managed."

And whilst there is a great deal of work involved in meeting the requirements of the Bill it bodes well for the future.

"At a time when there is less time, less money, less resources and an increase in the demands on policing, there is a need for us to work in partnership with other agencies and to become more focused," said Mr Sheldrake. "If all the partnership work comes together, it should substantially reduce our workload in the future."

The Audit Commission has already visited Essex Police and a number of other forces to establish where we are with our community contacts and our identification of good practice. It will no doubt return in the future to measure our success.