The community trigger

What is it:

The Community Trigger (or Anti-social behaviour Case Review) is a process which allows members of the public to ask their local Community Safety Partnership to review responses to incidents of anti-social behaviour.

The Trigger was been introduced though the Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 (revised January 2021) to help ensure that agencies are working together to resolve incidents of anti-social behaviour that are affecting resident’s quality of life. We will do this by appropriately sharing information between agencies, reviewing the actions that have been taken and use available resources to try and reach a solution and make recommendations that will hopefully prevent the situation from reoccurring. The Trigger does not replace the existing complaints procedures of individual organisations, or your opportunity to complain, when appropriate, to the Local Government Ombudsman or Independent Police Complaints Commission.

The Community Trigger was introduced in October 2014. The table below shows how many applications have been made each year, how many applications have met the threshold for a case review to be held and how many of those case reviews resulted in recommendations being made.

When can I use it:

The Community Trigger can be used if you have reported at least three incidents of anti-social behaviour to a relevant organisation within the previous six months. These are incidents where the same behaviour, nuisance or problem has reoccurred, where you feel no effective action has been taken and each incident was reported within one month of it happening.

For the purpose of the Community Trigger, an incident of anti-social behaviour is defined as behaviour causing harassment, alarm or distress to a member, or members, of the public. This could include behaviour such as vandalism, public drunkenness, noisy or abusive neighbours. Further information about the types of anti-social behaviour can be found on the Kent Police website

The Community Trigger is not designed to replace existing anti-social behaviour reporting lines or for the reporting of general acts of crime, including hate crimes although these can be included in the number of incidents you have reported if you feel they were part of the anti-social behaviour. It may be that if an anti-social behaviour case is already ongoing that this investigation will continue and the Community Trigger would not therefore be appropriate at this time.

To report an incident of anti-social behaviour please use the Anti-Social Behaviour Online Form here, or call 101 or the Dartford Community Safety Unit (CSU) on 01322 343000.

Reports of criminal behaviour or criminal activities should be reported to the Police on 101 or 999 in an emergency.

If you or someone you know is being bullied, harassed or abused because of your race, religion, disability, sexuality or gender identity then please report it to Kent Police via 101 or the online reporting tool.

How do I use it:

To use the Community Trigger you can either complete the COMMUNITY TRIGGER Online Form here , by calling 01322 343000, by email to community.safety@dartford.gov.uk or in writing to:

Community Trigger, Community Safety Unit, Dartford Borough Council, Home Gardens, Kent DA1 1DR

You will need to provide details of the date of each incident that you have reported, to who (name, organisation and/or Incident Reference Number – if available) and information about the anti-social behaviour incident you were reporting. You will also be asked to agree to allow your details and information about you to be shared with other agencies.

The Trigger can also be used by any person on behalf of a victim, for example a family member, friend, carer, councillor, Member of Parliament or other professional person. However, the victims consent will be needed before a person can use the Community Trigger on their behalf.

What can I expect:

Once a Community Trigger application has been received and accepted, the Community Safety Unit will contact the other agencies involved to confirm the details of the reported incidents to verify the threshold has been met. You will be contacted to confirm that the Trigger threshold has been met or if it has not been met what action will be taken to deal with the issues raised.

Following validation of the threshold the Community Safety Unit will request that agencies provide complete details of the case and any actions that has been taken to resolve the issues reported to them.

Arrangements will be made for a review panel to be formed who will then carry out a case review. The panel will involve senior staff from the appropriate Community Safety Partnership agencies (such as the Police, Council or Social Landlord) and/or any other partners that may have been involved. The panel will discuss the anti-social behaviour and the actions taken.

We will write to you soon after the panel meeting to inform you of the findings and recommendations, we aim to do this as quickly as possible but within a maximum of 30 working days. Should the review take longer than this we will contact you to explain the delay.

The relevant bodies who undertake a case review may make recommendations to other agencies. The legislation places a duty on a person who carries out public functions to have regard for those recommendations. This does not mean that they are obliged to carry out the recommendations, but that they should acknowledge them and may be challenged if they choose not to carry them out without good reason.

What if I am unhappy with the way my application or review was handled:

If you are unhappy with the way your community trigger application has been handled or the response received from the review panel then you can request that a secondary review be carried out by an independent panel.

How to request a secondary review will be explained in the letter you receive informing you of the review panels findings and recommendations.