They discuss crime prevention. If these groups are to prevent crime, they need to be well chaired, supported by key agencies and highly focused. With the right advice and leadership, they can ensure that scarce resources are deployed strategically to best effect. Without these conditions, there is the danger that they will generate a lot of paper and talk but little else. They are a means to an end, not an end in themselves.
Leadership style is of critical importance.
This is because members join such groups voluntarily so style of leadership is often passive and undemanding. Recent research into the leadership styles of multi-agency groups suggests that leadership should be much more challenging and directive. The second problem occurs when members fail to appreciate the difference between multi-agency planning and single agency action. The main point here is that multi- agency partnerships are unlikely to work well if individual agencies have not incorporated crime prevention concerns within their mainstream work. A common problem is that individual agencies often delegate their crime prevention responsibility to the multi-agency partnership instead of addressing this internally.