As we discussed in our blog  To segregate or not to segregate you might want to segregate the information you share with your Members – not only to comply with Data Protection law but also to make your content more relevant and engaging for your Members. Here we focus on the Disc solutions which help you segregate your data easily…

Two options are available: a ‘bolt-on’ Disc system or Disc SC.

If you’re just running two schemes, for example, a night-time Pubwatch alongside a day-time Shopwatch scheme, and you decide to segregate the data between the two, a Disc bolt-on is likely your best option.

‘Bolting on’ a second Disc system to your existing Disc implementation provides you with separate Disc systems for each scheme.  Although they’re totally separate, they are networked together so the Administrator can toggle between them without having to log in and out.  As Administrator, you can add content to both systems from the same Admin Centre and access a single Dataview of Offenders and Incidents taken from both systems.

Because each system has its own Members, you can ensure that they only see the information – including Offenders’ personal data – which is relevant to them.  But any Members who belong to both schemes (for example, off-licences who might belong to your retail and your night-time schemes) can access both sets of data easily through the same Disc App and Desktop.

Each system can also be independently branded – for example one can be ‘Northtown Shopwatch’ and the other ‘Northtown Pubwatch’, each with its own logo.

If you’re likely to set up more than two segregated schemes, you can just keep on adding any number of bolt-on Disc systems.  But if you’re likely to want to support more than two or three in the foreseeable future, Disc SC may be a more cost-effective option.

Disc SC (for Segregated Content) is a single Disc system which can support literally any number of different schemes – whether segregated by geographical area (north, south, central etc) or by type of business (retail, licenced premises, hotel, transport service etc) – or any combination of both.

So, if you’re a BID that wants separate Shopwatch and Pubwatch schemes for retailers and licensees, but also wants to share data about individuals involved in general anti-social behaviour in public spaces with all levy-payers, Disc SC makes it easy to set up such a scheme, and manage it through the same Admin Centre that you use to manage the others.

With Disc SC there is no extra cost in setting up new schemes, so if you have ambitions to launch new Shopwatches, Pubwatches or any other kind of Watch-group in other geographical areas, you can do so without worrying about the cost – that’s often the difference between setting up new schemes and not setting them up!

There’s no limit to the number of schemes you can set up on one Disc SC system and each of them can be given different titles (Northtown Retail Reduction Group, Northtown Pubwatch and so on) However, with Disc SC, each scheme is presented under a common ‘umbrella’ identity, such as Northshire Against Business Crime and under the same logo.

Cost-wise, for an organisation that simply wants to support two segregated schemes, a standard Disc system plus a bolt-on will be the most cost-effective option.  For organisations that wish to support more than just a couple or three schemes, Disc SC will be the most appropriate from the point of view of cost.

If you want to know more, or to explore which option is best suited for you, contact us at enquiries@littoralis.com, phone us on 01273 900468 or contact us through our Enquiry Form.

Under the law, Data Controllers are responsible for every aspect of the personal data under their management.  That includes who they share it with, so it’s essential that business crime reduction schemes understand ‘segregation’ of personal data.  What is ‘Segregated Content’ and how can Disc help?

As we explain in our Factsheet on Data Protection law and GDRP (click here to request a copy) business crime reduction schemes (BCRSs) must only share the personal data of offenders with Members who have a legitimate interest in that data – for example, to participate in banning or exclusion schemes or, more generally, where it is necessary for the protection of their premises, property, customers or staff.

Take a BCRS that supports both a Shopwatch and Pubwatch.  Clearly retailers have a legitimate interest to know who local shoplifters are – but do they have the same right to access the personal data of individuals who have been reported only for anti-social behaviour associated with the local night-time economy?  And vice versa:  should Members of the Pubwatch be able to access personal data about shoplifters who never been involved in incidents in pubs and clubs?

If you’re running a single scheme, and just sharing data about retail crime to retail outlets or sharing details to pubs and nightclubs about individuals who are causing problems during the night then a legitimate interest is easily established.  But where the BCRS runs more than one scheme, each with different types of Members, are you justified in sharing all offenders’ data with all Members?

Ultimately, it’s down to the Data Controller to decide – and to document it as explained in our Factsheet.  But as more and more BCRSs expand their coverage across both retail and ‘hospitality’ sectors, they are becoming aware of the need to segregate their data so that specific types of data are shared only with specific types of Members.

You may feel comfortable in allowing all your Members to see the personal data of all offenders on your Disc system.  After all, a pub may have issues with shoplifters selling stolen goods on its premises, and of course 24-hour off-licences are retailers, but they also participate in the ‘night-time’ economy.

But if you’re running different kinds of schemes, with different purposes, you may want some form of data segregation. It means you can ensure that Pubwatch Members only see night-time data, retail Members only see retail data, and so on.  And more: by ensuring that Members only see content which is relevant to their own businesses, you’re likely to achieve higher levels of engagement by Members.

In Disc, implementing content segregation is simple.  In our separate blog here we discuss two options: using a Disc ‘bolt-on’ system or, alternatively, using Disc ‘SC’ (for Segregated Content).

Business crime reduction schemes want Disc to become a regular part of their Members’ work routines.  Using Disc to share compelling content with them is a powerful way they can ensure Members keep coming back to Disc again and again…

As a Disc Administrator, it’s vital that you regularly engage with your Members with a steady supply of ‘current awareness’ – news, alerts, information about up-coming events and newly-posted documents –  that’s relevant to them. The more content of this kind you can post to your Disc system, the more they’ll engage with your systems – and they more they’re reminded that Disc helps keep their businesses safe and secure.

Alerts should keep Members aware of urgent or important events: an Offender who’s just been let out of prison, or a warning about a new method of shoplifting.  If your Alerts contain information that Members need to be aware of, they’ll come to rely on Disc for up-to-date information, and they’ll access your Disc system more.

Sharing relevant News items, on your Disc system and through your Disc automated weekly eNewsletter, works the same way: helping bring your Members back to Disc time and time again.  And News about your scheme’s achievements will also encourage them to keep reporting incidents through Disc.

The Disc automated eNewsletter is a powerful ‘engagement tool’ built into Disc, pro-actively pushing current awareness to your Members so they are drawn back into Disc to read more.

Another engagement tool is Disc’s Instant Messaging system which can be used to pro-actively send Push Notifications direct to your Members’ smartphones.  The system can also be configured to enable Members to send instant messages directly to one another. And ‘Member Categories’ can be set up so that Instant Messages can be targeted at specific geographical or business areas within your scheme, ensuring the information shared is always relevant to specific types of Members.

Encouraging Members to click-through to their Disc system – either from the weekly eNewsletter or via an Instant Message – will really maximise engagement, bringing Members back to Disc time and time again, and making it a regular part of their business activity.  

Every three months we look at your Disc implementation to see how it’s performing and, where necessary, we contact you with tips on how to improve its performance.

We look at two things: your ‘membership engagement’ level and your GDRP compliance and Best Practice documentation.

In this article we’ll look at the first of these; we’ll cover GDPR compliance and Best Practice in a following article.

What is ‘engagement level’ and how do we check it?

Your engagement level is the single most important indicator of the health of your Disc system.  If few Members are engaging with it, then few are benefitting from it – or from the service you provide through it. It’s in your interests – as well as ours of course – to put that right.

You can check your membership engagement level in your Admin Centre by calculating the number of all the Members on your system (Dashboard –> Number of Members) as a percentage of the number of the Members who log in each month (Dashboard –> Number of Members logging in).

Every Disc system is different so acceptable engagement levels will vary. But an engagement level of, say 30% (so 70% of your Members don’t access your system at least once a month) suggests a problem.  Aim for an engagement figure of 70% or higher – but there’s always a small proportion of Members who access your system less often than once a month, so a 90% engagement level would be great, but ambitious!

The tips we provide reflect the fact that membership engagement is determined by two things:  the quality and quantity of content shared through your Disc system, and how you manage your membership.

Content Quality and Quantity

Disc is used to share current awareness. The better it is, and the more of it you can enter into Disc, the more Members will want to access it, and the more often they’ll come back to it.  ‘Better’ means compelling: information that your Members want to read. It’s not always easy to generate a steady flow of this kind of current awareness content, but here are some tips:

News: Obviously, share news that demonstrates how your scheme has helped to reduce the impact of low-level crime and ASB on your Members’ businesses. Also scour local media for relevant news to share through Disc (remember to include a reference or hyperlink to the source of the story if there is one). Consider designating selected Members as ‘Authors’ – for example local police or licensing authorities can submit news items direct into your system (read about how to set up Authors in Admin Centre –> Help –> Managing your Disc System –> Section 11: Members with Admin Permissions). Make the most of Cross-Disc Publishing: invite neighbouring Disc Administrators to become Members of your own system, and designate them as ‘Authors’ so they can copy any of their own news items direct into your Disc Admin Centre (where you can choose whether or not to pass it on to your Members). Read about how to set up Cross-Disc Publishing in Admin Centre –> Help –> Cross-Disc Publishing Guide).

Alerts: Remember to share Alerts – about urgent, important information – with Members by emailing them within Disc, or by sending push-notifications Members get them instantly on their smartphones.  Alerts draw Members back into Disc to read more – a great way to maximise their engagement. Do you receive notifications or Alerts into your Disc Admin Centre from National Business Crime Solution or any other information sharing network?  If so, make sure you review them as soon as possible so, where relevant, you can pass them on quickly to your Members.

Documents:  You probably use your Disc system to share ‘Must-Read’ and GDPR-compliance documents with your Members.  But are you making the most of this function? You can store Warning and Exclusion Notices in Disc so Members can print them out as and when they need them. Members may also need to refer to Best Practice and guidance, for example about CCTV cameras, powers of arrest and so on.  Review these from time to time to make sure they’re always up to date.  If you’re a BID, include your latest Business Plan as well as other documents such as Minutes of Board Meetings.

Events:  Make sure you use Disc’s Events function to publicise up-coming events to Members.  Any scheme is likely to run regular face-to-face or online meetings with Members: publicise these in Disc and attach Agendas.  Once events are over, write a news item in Disc to summarise what happened and attach Minutes. If you’re part of a BID, then include BID events especially those which attract more visitors into the area – and into your Members’ premises.

Incident Reports: A regular flow of incident reports generates compelling information which can be shared back to Members. So ensure everything is done to encourage Members to submit incident reports through your Disc system. You can view your reporting levels in Admin Centre –> Dashboard –> Number of Incidents Processed. Of course incident reports are essential for managing your local banning schemes.

Galleries: Incident reports provide the names and images for your Disc galleries, ensuring the galleries keep fresh, with new faces appearing on a regular basis:  making them more dynamic makes them more compelling to your Members. Also, try to keep the number of galleries to the minimum required: if Members get confused and find it hard to find a specific offender because there are too many galleries displayed, they’ll be less likely to access them.

Manage your Membership

The easiest way of improving your membership engagement level is simply to delete Members who never, or rarely, access your Disc system.

This isn’t a trick to make your engagement level look better.  It’s important to delete Members who, for one good reason or another, should no longer be on your list.  Members change jobs or move out of the area, and while your Rules & Protocols may require Members to let you know when their circumstances change, few do.

And it’s quite possible that some Members shouldn’t have been added in the first place.  Some of these may never have never logged in or logged in initially but not returned.  In any case these should be deleted from your Disc system. And you may save money too: your Disc license covers a specific number of Members, and we charge a small amount for any extra Member over that number.  If you’re over that limit, reducing your membership can save money.

Identifying inactive Members in your Disc systems is easy.  In Admin Centre –> Dashboard –> you can view all Members who have been inactive for the last three months.  Alternatively in Admin Centre –> Dashboard –> I want to…–> Manage Members you can use the Filter tool to display all Members who have never logged in, or not logged in over the last three, six or twelve months.

Before you delete them, just check that there’s no good reason they shouldn’t be deleted.  Disc can help: display all inactive Members in your dataview and click on the Email Selected Members button.  Now you can write a single email to all of them – perhaps asking them to get in touch with you if they wish to retain their membership – and click on Send.

Good Member management requires a personal touch.  If you notice a Member has become inactive, call or visit their premises to check whether they’re still there.  If they’ve moved on, is there a replacement who should be added as a Member?

Sometimes physical presence on the ground is the only way to spot newcomers into the area who may be eligible for membership; it’s easier to explain the benefits when you’re face-to-face.  And, as Disc Administrator, you can add new Members into Disc when you’re out and about through your Disc App (tap on ‘Admin Functions’ at the bottom of your Disc App homescreen to add a new Member).

Engagement Tools

To help you maximise member engagement, Disc includes two powerful, built-in ‘engagement tools’:  its automated weekly eNewsletter and its Instant Messaging system.

Make sure you have switched on automated eNewsletter (at Admin Centre –> I want to… –> Configure Disc –>  Current Awareness Management –>  eNewsletter –>  Configure Auto-send).  From now on, every Members will receive an eNewsletter from your Disc system, completely automatically created and sent every week.  It describes everything that’s been added to your Disc system in the previous seven days (and all up-coming events) and click-through links to full details in your Disc system.  Think of it as a shop window, tempting your Members to access all the great new content in Disc – and to engage.  Why would anyone step inside a shop if there was no window displaying what lies within?

And make the most of Disc’s Instant Messaging systems. When you send an Alert as an email to Members, be sure to send it also as a Push Notification. Members who use the App will be the first to know about it on their smartphones, and read full details in the App.  Alerts sent out like this attract Members back into your Disc system, further maximising engagement.

Also, make sure you switch on your Disc Instant Messaging system to enable Members to send Instant Messages and Push Notifications direct to one another.  Because Members must access the messages themselves in Disc, they are, again, drawn back into Disc, maximising engagement.  Configure Instant Messaging at Admin Centre –> I want to… –> Configure Disc –> Current Awareness Management –>Instant Messaging.

For more information…

We’ll continue to help by reviewing your Disc systems every three months and to provide useful suggestions for maximising your membership engagement level. In the meantime, if you need more information on this, please don’t hesitate to contact us on support@littoralis.com or 01273 900468.

In over 500 town- and city-centre crime reduction schemes across the country Disc enables tens of thousands of local businesses to share information about low-level crime, ASB and prolific offenders. But Disc systems can network together to share information across a county or metropolitan area mapped onto police force areas.

Already county-wide Disc Networks represent a step-change in driving down low-level crime across the UK.

Linking together into county-wide Disc Networks means local Administrators can easily and instantly share important Alerts and other current awareness and identify ID-Soughts and prolific offenders. Each participating Administrator stays entirely in control and can choose which other systems to connect with, how to process information received from them and whether or not to share their Offenders’ personal details with them.

And countywide or metropolitan Disc Networks like these can link directly to police, to help them work more effectively to close the ‘policing gap’.

What are the benefits of linking Disc systems together?

Connecting Disc systems across county or metropolitan areas ensures that all schemes in the area, especially those operating under the same police force’s Information Sharing Agreement, forge close links with each other to drive down low-level crime and ASB.

Working together in this way, the individual Disc-enabled schemes enhance their own effectiveness – and make them essential links in an organised county network. Connecting Disc systems together into Disc Networks makes it easier for the police to access the wealth of intelligence that crime reduction schemes and other local organisations such as BIDs share with their members. Higher levels of collaboration between police and the schemes further enhance the schemes’ effectiveness in combatting low-level crime and, in turn, the level of support available from police and their Police & Crime Commissioners.

What information can be networked and shared?

Cross-Disc publishing keeps local businesses continually – and more quickly – informed. It helps Administrators maximise the flow of useful information to their Members: the more they receive, the more they participate in their local Disc system.

So right across the Disc Network, participating schemes can share latest news, Alerts, documents, information about up-coming events and ID-sought images. The sharing process is simple – just one click is all it needs.

Disc Networks also enable each participating Administrator can allow other Administrators in their network to access their databases to search for Offenders known to more than one Disc system and who therefore are travelling, possibly prolific (in police language – ‘Level Two’ Offenders).

GDPR compliance

Like every other aspect of Disc, Disc Networks are GDPR compliant ‘by design’. Administrators as Data Controllers are always in control of who they share their data with: peer-to-peer sharing enables each Admin to decide who they wish to share with within the Disc Network.

Naturally, as always, sharing of personal data in this way will need to be covered by each scheme’s own compliance documentation, specifically their Legitimate Interest Assessment and relevant Privacy Notices.

Another example of Disc’s policy of ‘compliance by design’ enables Administrators to search across a Disc Network using its Cross-Disc Offender-Matching function at the same time as avoiding any question of ‘fishing’ of personal data – that is searching through shared personal data on the off-chance that it may be relevant.

Disc Networks require Administrators to search only on a ‘reference’ Offender within their own Disc databases. And in Disc, ‘Close Matches’ are based exclusively on the Offender’s relevant characteristics, ensuring the data shared is proportionate to the search.

You can read about county-wide Disc Networks in our factsheet here. Or contact us to discuss how we can help you connect with other Disc Networks across your own county or metropolitan area.

For almost a year now, high street businesses have faced unprecedented challenges.  Covid has closed tens of thousands of retail premises resulting in a temporary decline in shoplifting, while the virtual closure of the night-time economy has reduced the level of associated anti-social behaviour (ASB).  Yet overall, data show that lockdowns, job losses, business closures and social isolation has stoked a new wave of ASB – and shifted it onto the streets of our towns and city-centres.

Anti-social behaviour falls into four categories:

• Personal: when a person targets a specific individual or group;
• Nuisance: when someone causes trouble, annoyance or suffering to a community;
• Environmental: when behaviour affects public spaces or buildings;
• Covid-related: we should (hopefully only for the time being) include a new type of ASB: non-compliance with Covid restrictions.

How does ASB affect local businesses?

ASB impacts local businesses as much – perhaps more – than residents.  Public-facing businesses such as retailers, licensees, and sporting venues suffer not only from the fear, or impact, of violence, but also concern for workers and customers’ health and potential business property damage and the cost of repair.

Research shows a growing demand from local business owners for police forces to deal with anti-social behaviour. Unlike shoplifting, ASB is highly visible and often directly affects customer footfall. Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) can help protect local businesses from low-level crime and ASB and naturally their levy payers want to see action.

ASB affects both daytime and night-time economies and often crosses over between the two. Alcohol-fueled or drug-related ASB, for example, poses challenges for both daytime retail and night-time hospitality venues.  Hence the growth of local Shopwatches and Pubwatches over recent years, as well as larger Business Crime Reduction Partnerships.

It is vital to ensure crime information is shared between businesses who open during the day and those that open at night – but Shopwatch and Pubwatch schemes often run independently of each other so there is little sharing of information between them.

How can Disc help?

With Disc, schemes like these can work entirely independently, while sharing information between them (and their members) efficiently, effectively – and compliantly.

Disc also helps them work more closely with police, self-managing their own low-level crime and ASB but also identifying prolific offenders so that the police and other public agencies can focus their limited resources on pursuing them through the conventional criminal justice process.

This is ‘filling the policing gap’. Despite rising incidents of ASB, they are woefully under-reported to police. Lengthy delays on the 101 police non-emergency helpline and the belief that police won’t follow up such reports explains a lot.

Disc is a game-changer, enabling local businesses not only to fill the policing gap, but also enabling police to target their limited resources where they can have the biggest impact – on the prevention and detection of more serious crimes.

Disc enables effective information-sharing and through the Alert system, emerging issues and developing prolific offenders can quickly be identified and dealt with immediately. Police benefit through the gathering of evidence for a CBO, receiving information about ID-Soughts and focusing their resources on combatting prolific offenders.

Most importantly, all of this information can be shared securely and processed in full compliance with Data Protection Law and GDPR, including the processing of young persons’ data. Disc has been developed with ‘compliance by design’ at its heart, ensuring information security is embedded throughout its data-gathering processes.

Disc offers a win-win-win solution for crime reduction schemes, BIDs and police forces;  read more about how Disc works here.

To find out more about how Disc, or to book a demonstration of the system, please complete the enquiry form and we will be in touch!

Reduced budgets – and now the added challenge of Covid-19 – have forced police to concentrate their scarce resources where they can be most effective.

For retailers and licensees across the UK this has meant less police engagement in low level business crime such as shoplifting and anti-social behaviour around the night-time economy.

While police continue to urge local retail businesses and licensees to report such incidents to them, the perception is that they won’t follow them up.

Unsurprisingly, as a result there is substantial under-reporting of low-level business-related crime and ASB – and a growth in local business groups which enable their members to manage their own local crime problems without recourse to the police.

Business crime-reduction schemes: self-management of low-level crime

Today, around the country, thousands of independent, business-led shopwatches, pubwatches and other business-run crime reduction schemes gather information about local troublemakers and exclude the most troublesome from their premises.

Effectively they’re self-managing the crime and ASB of which they are victims.

Research shows schemes like these really work.  Typically, where they manage local exclusion schemes, just one out of five first-time offenders go on to re-offend; of those that do, half don’t offend a third time.

Clearly such schemes don’t just benefit their members – they also serve the wider society too, by helping first-timers back on the straight-and-narrow without involving the police or the criminal justice system.

The police are major beneficiaries of such schemes too.  While the schemes look after much low-level crime and ASB (especially in town- and city-centres) police can more effectively focus their resources on more serious crimes and more prolific offenders.

But there’s much more for both the police and the schemes here: the closest possible inter-working between them can generate more benefits still, and important ones too.

Police and business crime reduction partnerships

For police, business crime reduction schemes can help them identify and gather intel about the relatively small number of prolific offenders responsible for the great majority of shoplifting and business-related ASB – exactly the ones on which the police want to focus their time and resources.

They have much to gain, too, by accessing the communication channels that these schemes maintain with their members.  Those using Disc can enable their policing partners to share police news, alerts, documents and information about up-coming local events directly and quickly with a community that is not always easy to reach.

Disc can also increase the level of crime reporting by members which police encourage.  Scheme members who submit incident reports through Disc in order to support their exclusion scheme can quickly ‘escalate’ them into crime reports and send them, with optional Witness Statements, to the local force’s 101 desk or resolution centre with a click.

For the scheme’s part, working as closely as possible with local police brings important benefits in addition to helping them pursue prolific offenders through the Courts, perhaps to obtain Criminal Behaviour Orders or custodial sentences:

• Information sharing agreements: police forces can provide good-quality personal information about local offenders, including names and images; they’ll look for assurances that the schemes they deal with are properly constituted and managed;
• Joint operations: many local policing teams mount regular high-visibility trawls through local retail and night-time areas alongside scheme administrators, working together to identify known offenders in town and deter them from criminal activity; in some towns and city-centres, officers wear the scheme’s radio handsets to more quickly respond to requests for assistance by members;
• Staffing and accommodation: some forces provide low-cost (or even free) accommodation for larger schemes that require office space; officers can also participate in the administration of the schemes themselves, for example being sub-Administrators of its Disc system;
• Serving Exclusion Orders: it is best practice for schemes to serve ‘exclusion orders’ on offenders who have been banned from members’ premises; police can help here – either serving them in custody suites or delivering them to offenders’ homes;
• Contact Police & Crime Commissioners: every police force has a PCC (the Met has MOPAC) who have authority over policing policy and strategy; most are keen to support business crime reduction schemes in their area – sometimes financially; the closer an existing scheme works with local police the more visibility it will have with these important influencers.

Police will always attend serious incidents that involve immediate threat, irrespective of the value of any theft involved. But they are the first to admit that low-level business crime and ASB is a long way down their list of priority incidents.

Business crime reduction schemes provide local business with the tools to self-manage their own low level crime, and reduce its negative impact on their financial ‘bottom line’.

Working together is to the clear benefit of both – and the closer the inter-working, the greater the benefits for them – and the wider community.

Find out more

If you are interested in learning more about self-management of local crime and Disc, please see our website or book a demonstration here.

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.