Commentary on Sections Part 6: Local involvement and accountability Section 104: Review of response to complaints
231.This section provides for the community trigger. The community trigger is a mechanism for victims of persistent anti-social behaviour to request that relevant bodies undertake a case review. A case review would entail the relevant bodies sharing information in relation to the case, discussing what action has previously been taken, and collectively deciding whether any further action could be taken. Relevant bodies are set out in section 105 and include local authorities, the police, health providers and providers of social housing. Any individual, community or business can make an application for a case review, and the relevant bodies must carry out a case review if the threshold is met. The threshold will be set by the relevant bodies and could, for example, be three reports of separate incidents of anti-social behaviour in a six month period, where there has not been an adequate response to that behaviour. The threshold may also be set with reference to the persistence of the behaviour, the potential for harm to the victim, and the adequacy of response from agencies. Subsection (4) provides that the threshold should be set no higher than three complaints, but agencies may choose to set a lower threshold. Subsection (11) defines a “qualifying complaint” as one which is made within one month of the incident occurring and provides that the application for the case review should be made within six months of the original complaint. The community trigger is intended as a backstop safety net for the victims of anti-social behaviour who consider that there has not been an appropriate response to their complaints about such behaviour.
232.The relevant bodies in each local government area must make and publish arrangements for review procedures (subsection (2)). Paragraph 8 of Schedule 4 allows for joint arrangements to be made for a larger area such as the police force area. The procedures must include the point of contact for making applications and ensure that applications are passed to all the relevant bodies in the area. The bodies carrying out the review must inform the applicant of their decision on whether or not the threshold for review is met, the outcome of the review and any recommendations made as a result of the review (subsections (6) to (8)). The bodies carrying out the review may make recommendations to a person who carries out public functions, including any of the bodies that have taken part in the community trigger review, and the person must have regard to the recommendations.
233.Subsection (9) requires relevant bodies to publish information about the number of community trigger applications they received, the number of times the threshold was not met, the number of case reviews carried out and the number of reviews that resulted in further action.