ACPO Conferences

Cardinal SME was pleased to sponsor and support the nine regional ACPO Business Crime Conferences that took place during September and October 2009.  There were some interesting and lively debates involving a whole range of organisations and agencies.  The focus of activity and consolidation of effort to target business crime post the events will be difficult given the continued economic climate and planned reductions in Government spending.

There was real interest in the Cardinal SME concept and how it can support businesses in not only reducing crime but also in the way loss and shrinkage is managed within SME businesses.

Given the Government plans to reduce the national debt by cutting spending in certain areas it is inevitable that some crime and disorder partnerships will fail as they are directly supported by grants from, local or national government, the police or other agencies.

One way to prevent such failures and remove the need for grant aid is for businesses to join crime partnerships that are self funding.  The RAC model (Retailers Against Crime - Scotland) now adopted in areas outside Scotland is an excellent example of a successful and thriving model.

Stephen Govier the driving force within the Lambeth Business Crime Partnership gave a very eloquent and passionate presentation to the London Seminar where he expounded the concept of live information sharing not only within local Crime Partnerships but also across multiple partnerships and eventually across the whole of the UK.

Lambeth Business Crime Partnership already uses the live information sharing platform of Cr:iisp (Criminal Reporting, Integrated Information Sharing Platform) and he looks forward to the day when all London Boroughs share information on the same platform and then when all crime partnerships have access to live alerts and the widest possible network to reduce crime.

The Reading Seminar offered some excellent speakers and again some lively debate on the best way forward for business crime partnerships in 2010, especially with the planned government spreading cuts, it is clear that Business Crime partnerships, it is widely suspected that CDRP's will not be at the top of the lists for Government spending in 2010 and beyond.