Safer Halton Partnership

The Crime and Disorder Act 1998 put responsibility on local authorities and police chiefs to meet often with other local public organisations and in Halton this is done through the Safer Halton Partnership.

Safer Halton Partnership brings together key organisations to work together to tackle and reduce crime and anti-social behaviour and keep Halton a safe place to live, work and visit for everyone. Our strategic aim is to reduce crime and disorder in Halton.

Safer Halton Partnership core members include:

The partnership has duties to:

  1. To reduce crime and disorder
  2. Combat the misuse of drugs, alcohol and other substances
  3. Reduce re-offending
  4. Prevent involvement in Serious Violence and reduce instances of Serious Violence

Here you will find out more about our work, our strategy and access relevant resources and support.

Safer Halton Priorities

  • To increase community confidence through the prevention and reduction of anti-social behaviour.
  • Intervene to prevent or reduce repeat experiences of domestic violence and abuse and to prevent and reduce the number women and girls subject to violence within Halton.
  • For partners to work together to tackle serious and organised crime and to identify, prevent and support those at risk of criminal exploitation.
  • To respond to the crime and re-offending threats faced by local communities by identifying and managing the most persistent and problematics offenders.
  • To prevent individuals from being drawn into terrorism and provide appropriate advice and support.
  • To tackle hate crime and strive to raise awareness of what a hate crime is to residents and communities understanding that it is not acceptable to target individuals based on their identity.
  • To prevent and reduce the harms caused by substance misuse and understand the drugs profile for Halton and develop a local Combating Drugs Partnership Strategy.
  • To work in partnership to understand how violence is affecting communities and develop appropriate plans to prevent and reduce serious violence.
  • To improve road safety across Halton’s network for all users.​

Download our strategy

Domestic Abuse Related Death Reviews

Domestic Homicide Reviews (DHR) were established by the Home Office on a statutory basis under section 9 of the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims act (2004). They came into effect on 13 April 2011. More recently the name changed to Domestic Abuse Related Death Review (DARDR) to include deaths by suicide as well.

A Domestic Abuse Related Death Review is a review of the circumstances in which the death of a person aged 16 or over has, or appears to have, resulted from violence, abuse or neglect by:

  • a person to whom they were related or were a member of the same household, or
  • with whom they were or had been in an intimate personal relationship

held with a view to identifying the lessons to be learnt from the death.

Community Safety Partnerships are responsible for managing the Domestic Homicide Review process. In Halton, this is Safer Halton Partnership.

Cheshire Police are usually the ones to notify the partnership of the request for a DARDR and once this has been received a decision will be made whether a review is required using the Home Office guidance.

Domestic homicide reviews: statutory guidance - GOV.UK

What are DARDRs for?

The purpose of a Domestic Abuse Related Death Review is to establish any lessons learned, apply these lessons to service responses and to help prevent future domestic abuse related deaths. They are not inquiries into how someone died or who is to blame.

We will publish the reports and findings of these reviews as they become available.​​

Safer Halton Partnership Domestic Abuse Related Death Review – Referral Form

More information on Domestic Abuse

Anti-social Behaviour Case Reviews

The Anti-social Behaviour (ASB) Case Review (formally known as the ‘Community Trigger’) is a process which allows members of the community to ask the local Community Safety Partnership (CSP) to undertake a multi-agency review of the response to complaints of ASB.

We know that left unchecked, anti-social behaviour can have an overwhelming impact on its victims and, in some cases, on the wider community. The review is designed to bring agencies together to take a joined up, problem-solving approach to find a solution for the victim(s) of ASB.

An ASB Case Review can be requested for any case where;

  • A complainant has reported the same problem 3 or more times in the past 6 months to the Council, Police, or their Landlord, and inappropriate action has been taken in line with the relevant agencies policy and procedure.
  • Different complainants have made reports about the same problem 5 times in the past 6 months to the Council, Police, or their Landlord, and inappropriate action has been taken in line with the relevant agencies policy and procedure.

All ASB Case Review requests are considered on a case-by-case basis.

For more information including how to request an ASB Case Review please visit ASB information

Serious Violence Duty

The Serious Violence duty was introduced as part of the Police Crime Sentencing and Courts Act 2022. It requires specific authorities to work together to prevent and reduce serious violence in their local area. This means taking a multi-agency, public health approach to understand the causes and effects of serious violence, developing a strategic response focussing on prevention and early intervention and monitoring the impact of this preventative work. The specified authorities are Police, Probation, Youth Offending Teams, Fires and Rescue, Health and Local Authorities.

In Cheshire both strategic and operation boards for serious violence have been established that report into the Local Criminal Justice Board. The Police and Crime Commissioner for Cheshire has convening responsibility for the duty and associated grant spend. Cheshire’s strategy will cover a 5 year period, with annual reviews to reflect on progress against planned outcomes and to update delivery plans against emerging trends.

In taking a Public Health approach our definition is informed by the World Health Organisation definition of violence:

Violence is the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, that either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment or deprivation.

Further information can be found in the Cheshire Serious Violence Strategy 2024 – 2029.

Hate Crime

Information on Hate Crime

Prevent

Information on Prevent visit: Prevent Referral

Combatting Drugs and Substance Misuse

The misuse of alcohol and substances has far reaching negative impacts across Halton and there has been an increase of 34% in drug offences in 2022 and both drug and alcohol related domestic abuse has increased by 12%. Halton Combating Drugs Partnership (HCDP) is a strategic, multi-agency partnership established to support the delivery of the ambitions as set out in “From Harm to Hope: A 10 year drugs plan to cut crime and save lives”; the focus is on preventing harm from drugs.