The impact of the reducing burglary initiative in the North of England

This report summarises the findings from the Northern Consortium on the Impact of the
Reducing Burglary Initiative (RBI). The Northern Consortium was responsible for evaluating
projects in the north of England.
The consortium evaluated 21 Strategic Development Projects (SDPs) under Round 1 of the
RBI and found that these SDPs varied greatly in their attributes. There was variation in the
leadership of the projects along with variation in the demographics and crime problems they
were addressing.
The Northern Consortium Evaluation developed several new tools for evaluating crime
prevention initiatives including innovative methods for measuring crime displacement and for
attributing crime changes to policy interventions.
Using a wide range of data, both qualitative and quantitative the team derived a scoring
system for each SDP that allowed ranking of success to occur. Whilst this showed variability
in burglary reduction across the group, it shows success is possible, but there are many
elements of success, and implementation is a key driver of this. There were also many
lessons to be learnt by all crime reduction stakeholders including the Home Office, local
authorities, partnerships and evaluation teams from the work carried out, on how to ensure
sustainability, cost effectiveness and replicability in the future.