Local councils have a huge role to play in addressing crime and anti-social behaviour. In partnership with the police and local voluntary agencies, community safety officers are involved in implementing plans to reduce crime and disorder. They also promote and develop new initiatives to raise awareness of and increase public involvement in community safety.

Work Environment

Community safety officers are normally based in council offices, but spend a proportion of their time making visits in the local area. They often attend meetings of community groups – which may be held in the evenings.

Hours of work are 37 per week, but flexible.

Daily Activities

Councils have to ensure that community safety is taken into consideration in all their decisions. Community safety officers produce recommendations for measures to support this, such as making new housing estates or car parks safer by installing good lighting, or improving security measures for their own employees working in council buildings and installing CCTV surveillance cameras. From time to time they undertake safety audits to establish what is being done.

Community safety officers spend a lot of time building links and encouraging closer cooperation with people in the community and with other departments and organisations such as the Probation Service, schools, the police, local health trusts and the youth service. They also liaise with voluntary groups such as Neighbourhood Watch, Victim Support and tenants’/residents’ associations. They attend some of their meetings and may offer financial assistance – for example, to produce a newsletter or to send volunteers on training courses.

Community safety officers develop new initiatives. For example, the partnership organisations might decide to target housing estates with higher than average crime rates, and introduce some of the following measures: installation of better locks on tenants’ doors; provision of escorts for wardens making evening visits to elderly people; establishment of programmes to work with young offenders and drug users.

Community safety officers also do a lot of work with young people. They may be involved in encouraging the youth service to run a mobile advice vehicle, asking schools what assistance they need to counteract bullying and produce information packs for teachers, and encouraging 16-25 year olds to form youth councils to give them a say about the facilities they would like to see in the area.

Community safety officers spend a lot of time in meetings, sometimes with the council’s chief executive, senior police officers and the local MP and MEP.

Skills & Interests

Community safety officers must:

• be excellent communicators – able to work with people of all ages and backgrounds,
• have good written skills for report writing,
• be diplomatic,
• be enthusiastic,
• be good negotiators,
• be able to motivate other people,
• be resilient – able to cope if they feel that some people are being unco-operative,
• have good organisational and project management skills.

Entry Requirements

Community safety officers have varied backgrounds. Some have formal qualifications while others have experience in a project management role that has involved communication and negotiation with different departments.

Some councils require degree level or equivalent qualifications and experience in related jobs such as probation, social or youth work. You may also need some knowledge of crime and disorder legislation.

Estimated salary range

£23,000 - £27,000 per year.

Please note that salary information is a guide only and there may be local agreements in place. For further information about salaries for particular positions, please contact your local council directly.

Future prospects & opportunities

A small council might employ two or three community safety officers. In a large council there might be several teams of officers, each responsible for a number of initiatives. There may be possibilities to progress to team or service manager roles. There may also be opportunities within anti-social behaviour or youth offending teams.

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