Introduction

This guidebook looks at the correlations between the Community Safety Plan and the Integrated Development Plan (IDP) of municipalities and gives guidance on how projects and budgets that were identified to promote community safety can be integrated into the IDP and its specific sector plans.

The approach is based on the understanding that there is an immanent connection between safety and development. The continuous high levels of violence and crime have interfered with the social and economic development of many South African communities.

Local government has a constitutional and legislative mandate to promote safe and healthy environments, as well as the social and economic development of communities.  IDPs as the central strategic mechanism to plan and drive development in a municipality is therefore key to address safety related challenges by incorporating principals of safety in all aspects of development. This means that the IDP is required to more intentionally highlight the need for safer communities and mainstream interventions and programmes that promote violence and crime prevention and broader safety outcomes across all sections of the IDP (i.e. financial, institutional, spatial, local economic development, etc.). Ideally the Community Safety Plan should have a similar standing as the sector plans but so long this is not legislated, the Community Safety Plan can serve as an annexure to the IDP, whereby safety related aspects are highlighted/mainstreamed within the IDP and its relevant sections prominently.

The IDP and the Community Safety Plan share a life cycle of five years and the developmental objectives of both require alignment throughout the planning, development and annual review processes.

This guidebook is most practical in conjunction with the Guidebook on developing Community Safety Plans for Provincial and Municipal Officials.

Who is the guidebook for?

The guidebook is addressed to municipal and provincial officials that have developed (or are in the process of developing / reviewing) a municipal Community Safety Plan, as well as officials involved in the integrated development planning processes. The booklet gives guidance on how and where safety related aspects can and should be integrated in the Integrated Development Plan and its specific sector plans. This is done by using a case study of youth violence prevention to give an example on which questions need to be asked to ensure that safety and violence prevention is considered when planning interventions and programmes.

The guidebook can also be helpful for councillors and other actors working in the local government sphere on developmental and safety related issues to raise awareness and provide a basic understanding on how to apply safety measures into the IDP. 

Sections of the Guidebook

The guidebook gives an overview of the core components of an Integrated Development Plan and how the community safety plan is applied to the  five core  sector plans (Spatial Development, Local Economic Development, Disaster Management, Institutional, Financial). It highlights the relevance of a well-structured Community Safety Plan and follows certain quality criteria to allow for its integration into the IDP.

Based on a hypothetical case study, the guidebook gives examples of which crucial questions to ask to ensure that safety considerations are integrated when planning interventions and programmes within the five main sector plans. It further gives an overview of the key dates in planning to ensure that the processes of the Community Safety Plan and Integrated Development Plan can be aligned.

Within the appendices the guidebook provides a table summary of the South African legal framework relating to safety and the IDPs, as well as giving an example of the structure of a municipal IDP and a template for a Community Safety Plan with further tips and advise on the content of each section.

For more information

The guidebook can be downloaded here and should be consulted in conjunction with the Guidebook on developing Community Safety Plans for Provincial and Municipal Officials.

If you'd like to receive more information, please contact: Terence Smith or  Johanna Tyrakowski