Last updated: 30 October 2025
Next review: 30 October 2026
Our Community Safety Partnership, previously known as SafetyNet, oversees our work as a borough to prevent and reduce crime and disorder and keep our residents safe from harm.
This statutory partnership is a requirement of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 and brings together senior leaders from the council, police, probation, health and fire services to:
- Commission detailed analysis of local data and insight to understand existing and emerging threats and challenges
- Refresh strategic objectives and priorities annually, to ensure resources are deployed effectively
- Meet quarterly to review the performance of partners delivering the action plan
Priorities
The Community Safety Partnership focuses on tackling the issues that matter most to residents, cause the most harm to communities, and require a collaborative, cross-system approach to achieve change.
Combining local data on crime and disorder, with insight from our communities, we have identified five core priorities that the partnership. These are:
- Protecting communities from drug and alcohol related harms by ensuring early identification, respectful treatment, and easy access to high-quality, evidence-based support that helps prevent crime, vulnerability, and harm.
- Ending Violence Against Women and Girls by working together to build a borough where women and girls are safe from violence and abuse, can access the support they need, when and where they need it, and where abuse by men and boys is never tolerated.
- Keeping young people safe from violence and exploitation by building the resilience of our young people, providing targeted, early support for those most at risk and responding swiftly and effectively when violence occurs.
- Reducing crime, Anti-Social Behaviour and disorder by working across partners to prevent, reduce and address anti-social behaviour (ASB) & crime, engaging communities, supporting victims, holding perpetrators to account and promoting long-term solutions to building safer neighbourhoods.
- Promoting community cohesion by building stronger, more inclusive communities that are resilient to hate and extremism, supported by early intervention, increased trust in services, and greater confidence for residents to report incidents and seek support.
For each of these priorities, a strategic, multiagency board drives delivery, coordinating and overseeing local service responses, and turning strategic priorities into practical actions.
By focusing on these priorities, we will create safer communities where residents feel protected and supported. This, in turn, will strengthen trust and confidence in the police and partners, providing a more effective and responsive approach to community safety.
Community Safety Partnership meetings are chaired by the council’s Portfolio Lead Holder for Community Safety and the partnership board reports to the Communities and Public Protection Scrutiny Committee.
Further information on the work of the Community Safety Partnership can be found in our Community Safety Plan.
Domestic Abuse-Related Death Reviews (DARDRs)
Domestic Abuse-Related Death Reviews (DARDRs), previously known as Domestic Homicide Reviews (DHRs), were established under Section 9 of the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act (2004) and brought into effect on 13 April 2011.
DARDRs are carried out by the Community Safety Partnerships (CSP) and take place when the death, including a suicide, of a person aged 16 or over has, or appears to have, resulted from violence, abuse or neglect by a relative, household member or someone the person had been in an intimate relationship with.
When relevant, the CSP will establish a multi-agency review panel, led by an independent chair, for the review which comprises members of local statutory and voluntary agencies.
The purpose of a DARDR
A DARDR aims to clearly establish what lessons can be learnt from these deaths and help services work to prevent domestic violence and improve service responses for all victims and their children through improved intra- and inter-agency working.
To do this it will:
- review the circumstances leading to the death, drawing on information from families, other significant people and participating agencies
- consider where responses can be improved in the future
- identify any best practice to share
The Community Safety Partnership will publish reports of local DARDRs in accordance with the Home Office’s statutory guidance.
A DARDR is not an inquiry into how someone died or who is to blame. It is not part of any disciplinary process. It is in addition to, not in replacement of, an inquest or any other form of inquiry into the death.
For all published statutory reviews, including safeguarding adult reviews, serious case reviews and domestic abuse-related death reviews, please visit our Strategic Partnership Boards page.
Community safety in Waltham Forest
Use these links to find out more information, or to report a crime:
- find out more about local community safety issues and services
- report a crime to the police through the Metropolitan Police Service website
- report a hate crime through the True Vision web site