Napoleon once famously described Britain as a ‘Nation of Shopkeepers’. Our retail industry is currently facing unprecedented pressures, especially on the High Street. This is irrespective of being a large retail brand or a small independent – the challenges are very real.

The British Retail Consortium 2020 Retail crime survey estimates that over £1bn has been lost to retail crime and this has driven record spending on crime prevention of £1.2bn. This represents a staggering total cost of crime to retailers of £2.2bn. Customer theft constitutes the vast majority of losses to crime, now at £770m and 70% of the research respondents ranked the police response as ‘Poor’ or ‘Very Poor’.

This is not the fault of the police whose government funding has been cut leaving them stretched and even more so since Covid-19 struck – they have a lot more to do with less staff and less money. Everything in policing is filtered through threat, risk and harm and the majority of what police do can dominate traditional police response to retail crime. This leaves local businesses lacking in support and protection from shoplifting, anti-social behaviour (ASB) and other retail-related crimes and thus gives rise to the increasing need for Business Crime Reduction Partnerships which bring local business owners and national retailers together, to jointly self-manage local retail crime. 

The Met Police says “by joining or forming a business partnership, you’ll be helping to reduce crime and disorder affecting your business and others.”

Crime and the worry of criminal activity can impact on the profitability of local businesses. Joining a Business Crime Reduction Scheme helps business owners to reduce shoplifting and ASB as well as theft from their customers. The added benefit is that it empowers businesses, their employees and their partners, helping to educate, inform, share pertinent offender information, and instil greater peace of mind for all. 

The importance of taking action to combat prolific offenders

Retail crime is NOT a victimless crime.  Theft affects profit margins, which affects prices, which affects jobs and affects communities. 

This is not the time to do nothing – this is precisely the time to consider how to prevent, disrupt and deter shoplifters, especially prolific offenders.

There are numerous research papers on retail crime, all pointing to the fact that the vast majority of shoplifting is committed by 10% of prolific, local and most certainly life-style addicted offenders. Shoplifting is often viewed by prolific offenders as easy, offering big rewards for minimal consequences if caught.

The most important aspect of any Crime Reduction Scheme, especially if it also includes an exclusion or banning scheme, is that it allows the police to tap into lots of information and intelligence around local prolific offenders and concentrate on curbing their activity. With limited resources, it’s vital that police spend their time and funds in the areas where they can have most impact. Crime Reduction Schemes, working on behalf of their business members, can self-police the majority of illegal activity committed by low priority or first-time offenders, leaving the police to focus where they are needed most.

Research (you can read it here) shows that issuing a warning to ‘first time’ offenders reduces re-offending by up to around 80%; therefore, four out of five offenders do not subsequently re-offend.  The same research shows that where first-time offenders do re-offend, they are less likely to do so in premises where they had originally been reported. And, of those reported a second time – and banned – almost half are not reported for a further qualifying incident. 

Schemes like these clearly have a major impact on reducing low-level crime and ASB for first-time offenders, but also in helping to identify and stop the 10% of individuals who, typically, are responsible for 90% of retail crime. They can help identify these prolific offenders, gather evidence and help local police and community safety agencies to secure Community Behaviour Orders or other legal restraints.

Crime reduction schemes are the cement connecting police forces with local businesses

All of this can only occur if businesses work with and actively support local crime reduction schemes, along with the local police force. Police need to embrace technology and work closely with such schemes by, for example, having an effective and appropriate Information-sharing agreement that allows the sharing of police images among scheme members.

This is where the Disc system comes in. 

Disc is a unique online crime information-sharing system that’s helping drive down low-level crime and ASB across the UK. It empowers local business communities to ‘self-manage’ low-level crime and ASB, and enables police to work with them to deliver a new kind of effective, joined-up community policing.

Disc allows Crime Reduction Schemes, Business Improvement Districts, Shopwatch and Pubwatch programmes and Neighbourhood Watch Schemes to effectively and compliantly collate and share information and intelligence around crime, ASB and safeguarding, through the Disc App and Desktop. It can be used by police forces to engage with local schemes and to join up all local Disc systems to provide really effective and efficient two-way communication with their local business community. 

With Disc, police forces are delivering more effective, joined-up community policing, and delivering more support, more efficiently and securely than ever before.

By all working together for a common aim, Crime Reduction Partnerships and Schemes effectively help businesses protect their customers, staff, stock and profit margins. With Disc, police do not need to get involved in every single retail crime or ASB incident, but can concentrate their efforts on stopping the small minority of ‘life-style’ addicted prolific offenders, using the information and intelligence gathered by businesses and saved to their local Disc system. Disc is the cement between police and local business communities, helping to fill the policing gap in dealing with low-level retail crime.

Find out more

Find out more about how Disc can help support your Crime Reduction Partnership Scheme or how Disc can support police forces.

If you would like a demonstration of the Disc system we would be delighted to provide one via video. Please get in touch to book in!

Covid presents two challenges to Business Improvement Districts.  One is to deliver practical assistance to levy-payers to maximise their ‘bounce back’ from lockdown. The other, put brutally, is to protect them from insolvency.

Covid is an existential threat for retailers and licensed premises. BIDs that simply do what they have always done – but perhaps more so – won’t be doing enough to protect their levy-payers from catastrophe and, ultimately, to protect themselves either.

Covid is accelerating major long-term trends (out of town retailing, multiple-isation, online retailing to name a few) which have been slowly impacting the UK’s high streets for many years.  Already, within just a few months of Covid coming to town, we have seen many retail and hospitality sector casualties.  There will be many more, large and small, in the months ahead.

If it’s tough for retailers, the night-time economy has been hit even harder. The previously resilient hospitality sector is only now seeing restaurants pubs and attractions re-opening; theatres and cinemas will be slower to revive, and clubs remain closed at the time of writing.  ‘Revival’ is perhaps too optimistic word: obligatory social distancing and some customers’ reticence to return to crowded places means businesses like these will be looking more to survive than to revive in the months – perhaps even years – ahead.

BIDs that continue to focus primarily on ‘place marketing’ –maximise visitor numbers and footfall in their areas – will need to do much, much more than that.  Their new emphasis must be on initiatives that deliver real, demonstrable cost-reductions for their levy-payers.  If they don’t then it won’t only be many of their levy-payers that go to the wall in the next few years – so too will many BIDs.

First and foremost, among such initiatives are daytime and night-time exclusion schemes.

Research from the University of Gloucestershire shows that local exclusion schemes deliver demonstrable reductions in low-level crime and ASB for their participants. In practice, that means reducing shoplifting for local retailers and keeping troublemakers out of pubs, bars and clubs.

Reducing shoplifting and bringing more people into town at night means protecting levy-payers’ profitability – and enhancing the BID’s own prospects when it comes time to re-ballot.

Of the 350 BIDs in the UK, 250 cover towns or city-centres, where retailers and the hospitality industry constitute the largest proportion of levy-payers.  Yet a third of these don’t include a ‘safer secure’ commitment in their Business Plans.  Of those that do, too few offer more than on-street ‘Welcome’ teams, regular meetings with local police and advice on CCTV camera placing.  And of these, only one in three manage exclusion schemes on behalf of their retailers and hospitality sectors.

Now must be the time when BIDs put exclusion schemes right to the top of their priorities.  And happily, it has never been easier – and quicker – to set up and manage efficient, effective and compliant schemes.

The Coronavirus Act 2020 allows BIDs previously due to re-ballot in the period to March 2021 to extend their terms for a further 12 months.  And the government has made an ex gratia grant of £6.1m specifically to help BIDs through this challenging period.  Taken together, these initiatives provide more than enough breathing space, and funding, for every town and city-centre BID to get on with it.

If you’re a BID that wants to explore the benefits and the practicalities of setting up retail and night-time banning schemes for your levy-payers, find out more and contact us now.

Forget about our streets:  it’s inside our corner-shops and take-aways that criminals are running riot.

In July Priti Patel commanded a crack-down on abuse and violence in the retail sector.  But there’s a crucial gap in her chain of command – a gap that only local retailers themselves can fill.

Talk about Best Practice Guides, exhortations to report more crimes, ‘strengthening and making full use of’ existing laws, improving data-sharing between businesses and urging police to ‘underscore the importance’ of close working with local businesses – it’s all been said, and even done, before.

Saying things, and even doing things, doesn’t always produce the desired results. Converting this kind of top-down rhetoric into effective action means motivating and mobilising real-life retailers and licensees to participate in active crime-reduction.

You’d have thought that was a no-brainer: after all these are the people who stand to benefit most. And you’d have thought that Priti Patel, born and bred into independent retailing, would ‘get it’ better than most.

But there are many problems in converting good words and actions into good results. Just because Westminster commands it, doesn’t mean that 43 territorial police forces will obey and anytime soon.  Even if police show willing, it’s unlikely they’ll make ‘full use of existing laws’ to address the problem: high volume, low-value offences rank very low in their priorities – and probably rightly so. Spending between £5,000 and £10,000 of scarce policing and (even scarcer) criminal justice resources on progressing a shoplifting offence, or even low level ‘violence’ in retail premises, to a successful conclusion in the criminal courts, is, frankly, a criminal waste of money.

Enabling retailers to self manage low-level crime to fill the ‘policing gap’

There is an answer. Local retailers and licensees, working together in Business Crime Reduction Partnerships (BCRPs) or Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) is the way forward. By enabling them to self-manage low-level crime in their own premises and local communities, they can – and do – play an essential role in ‘filling the policing gap’.

More and more police forces around the country are working with such partnerships and schemes. It’s a win-win-win deal:

• the local businesses achieve real (and provable) reductions in shoplifting and violent ASB
• police fulfil their duty to prevent and detect crime by supporting them (at virtually zero cost)
• the wider community benefits by identifying early-stage offenders and nudging them back onto the straight and narrow.

The British Retail Consortium, representing the interests of the largest retailers in the UK, has long called for ‘the need for an improved police response’. This is still sadly lacking.  If they, and the home secretary, are serious about reducing retail crime they need to spend more time with local BCRPs and BIDs that operate exclusion or banning schemes.  They’ll see that it is here, at grassroots, where the action is, and where good things happen. And for a lot less investment.

Only by harnessing the motivation – and self-interest – of smaller owner/manager retail businesses, through schemes like these, will Westminster, police and major retailers really close the policing gap.  It’s time for Priti Patel to educate her government on the need for grassroots engagement to get real results in low-level crime reduction.

Find out more about how Disc helps BID’s and Watch Groups reduce low-level retail crime.

Right now, barely 10% of licenced premises are open.  No one knows when Britain’s leisure industry will be back to work – but there’s no doubt it won’t ever be quite the same.

Even before Coronavirus, a pub was closing every 12 hours across the UK.  So adapting to the ‘new normal’ is only one challenge that faces publicans in the years ahead.

When lockdown is lifted many licensed premises will remain closed: much of the sector was financially under-resourced at the best of times and Coronavirus will have called last orders on many. Those that survive will look inevitably to reduce essential costs to the minimum, and identify and jettison non-essential ones altogether.

Where will this leave Pubwatch schemes? 

Many Pubwatch schemes are relatively informal groups of licensees who share information about local troublemakers and, where appropriate, exclude them from their premises. Few charge member subscriptions: hopefully their future will be relatively secure in the cash-strapped future.

Larger Pubwatches, however, tend to be supported by subscriptions, and these will undoubtedly be under pressure as members look to reduce non-essential overheads.  Many depend on a single member to manage the Pubwatch’s affairs:  maybe he or she will be among those that don’t resume trading when the lockdown is eventually lifted in full.  It isn’t always easy to find a replacement willing to step up in their place.  Too often Pubwatch schemes simply fade away when a key ‘mover and shaker’ decides to hand in their empties for good.

Yet Pubwatches provide an invaluable service, and not just to their members. Keeping troublemakers away benefits not only pubs but the wider communities in which they are located.  Police and licensing authorities work closely with Pubwatches not only so that pubs maintain good order but also that young offenders can be identified at an early stage.  Pubwatches provide invaluable opportunities to encourage youngsters to improve their behaviour and, where necessary, to refer them to council’s Early Intervention teams and ultimately, and only where unavoidable, to the police and the criminal justice system.

It’s sad to see pubs close their doors for good – but it’s nothing short of tragic to see Pubwatches closing wholesale around the country. Yet, for as long as Pubwatch schemes are under-resourced, reliant on a single ‘mover and shaker’ member to keep them going, and for receive no direct support from police and councils, that’s what we can expect.

Some police forces and local authorities already provide invaluable support for Pubwatches in their areas –  but most don’t.  True – many Pubwatches are keen to maintain their independence from local policing and licencing authorities. But with Pubwatches under pressure nationwide, police and councils everywhere should explore what they can do to provide support for these groups.

For example, even for the most independently-minded Pubwatch, police and councils can provide access to online management tools like Disc, to make it easier for the Pubwatch to manage its own affairs without any undue reliance on a single ‘mover and shaker’. In doing so, police and councils can also ensure that the Pubwatch operates in compliance with legal obligations, not least of which is GDPR without which they’re understandably unwilling, for example, to share personal data of offenders.

The aim: a win-win deal for all.  The Pubwatch benefits from improved information-sharing, mobile access to galleries of locally banned troublemakers, and legally compliant instant messaging.  The police and council benefit from access to intel about low-level crime and Anti-Social Behaviour and the offenders behind it, as well as access to new ways of instantly and effectively communicating news, Alerts, documents and information about up-coming events etc to licensees across their policing area.

Find out more about Disc for Watch Groups.

Coronavirus has hit public-facing service industries the hardest: tourism, travel, retail and leisure sectors are facing the biggest challenges of all.

Government is doing what it can to keep these industries – and many of the business-to-business companies that support them – on life-support. But smaller – and some larger – Business Crime Reduction Partnerships are facing an existential crisis.

Where they can, BCRP Managers have put themselves on furlough, but government furlough support is set to be reduced.  In addition, with modest financial turnovers, few can borrow sufficient funds through ‘Bounce Back’ loans to keep operational.

Business Crime Reduction Partnerships deliver a crucial role in ‘filling the policing gap’ in communities across the country.  But, when the retail and the hospitality industries return to normal – whatever that turns out to be – many BCRPs will simply have disappeared for good.

The problem, says Andy Sharman (left) of South West Business Crime Centre (SWBCC), is the business model that too many BCRPs rely on.  “Even before Coronavirus, the model was flawed” he says. “These are relatively small organisations entirely dependent on subscriptions from local retailers and licensees, plus whatever they might get from hiring radios.  This modest revenue stream has been threatened by long-term decline in High Street retailing plus cost-cutting by some of the largest retailers. Now Coronavirus means they’re facing a perfect storm.”

According to SWBCC research conducted in the early stages of the Coronavirus shut-down, independent BCRPs are facing a fight for survival. Yet right around the country, high streets and the wider communities around them will continue to need active, and sustainable BCRPs.

The benefits BCRPs can generate are well-known –  and proven –  and Police & Crime Commissioners countrywide have signalled their support for exactly this kind of community-based partnership-working outside the public criminal justice system, recognising their key role in addressing and reducing the kind of low-level crime and ASB that police cannot economically address themselves.

Now, more than ever, is the time for PCCs to step up and provide the modest financial support for struggling BCRPs that can make the difference between their survival and their untimely demise.

“But not just to do more of the same” says Andy Sharman.  “PCCs must demand that recipients of funding demonstrate how they can return to full self-sustainability when the lock-down is finally ended – and that means BCRPs must generate more, and new, organic growth after lock-down. They need to look beyond dwindling subscriptions and radio rentals, to new financial opportunities.

“They need to sell their services more effectively, demonstrating the effectiveness of local exclusion schemes to new potential subscribers.  They need to make sure that message is heard more widely, right across a town, for example, not just in a central shopping area.  They need to recruit new members from new sectors such as public transport, industrial estates, hotels and so on.

“There are opportunities to widen their range of services too. Some have taken over troubled and under-resourced public CCTV systems, for example. My experience is that BCRPs are better at providing such services because they answer direct to local businesses, who obviously stand to benefit most.

“Warden and Ranger services are widely deployed by Business Improvement Districts; again, a BCRP is well-positioned to provide these kinds of services for the benefit of its members.  They provide a high-vis presence to deter low level crime, and they can really help to re-build relationships with police, and work out a way of working more closely together for their mutual benefit. Why not provide a key-holder service too?”

Sharman believes it’s ideas like these that a PCC will look for before providing financial assistance to BCRPs through the next few months or, who knows? even longer. Simply hoping to return to the ‘new normal’ with an old, and flawed, business model is unlikely to be good enough.