'Inaction is not an option'

Since January, members of the Home Office's Antisocial Behaviour Unit have travelled hundreds of miles across the country, listening to and talking with people whose lives have been made hell by the problem.

It cannot be right that a 50-year-old woman has had sleepless nights for years because her neighbour banged on her ceiling constantly; that a woman with a disabled partner cannot leave her home by the front door because of the abuse and intimidation she suffered; that a whole community has been terrorised by just three families; that a nine-year-old girl has been put on anti-depressants and doesn't want to go to school because of the bullying and harassment that her family had endured. Nor can it be right when an entire neighbourhood is destroyed by the prostitutes who walk the streets and turned it into a red-light area. Alongside these human tragedies are the burned-out and abandoned cars, graffiti, smashed windows and vandalised buildings that are clear signs of a lack of community pride. The total cost of antisocial behaviour, in fact, is an astronomical £3.4bn a year.

These stories are repeated from large cities to small towns, and have been the justification for the unit's work. But it has not been all negative. We have been inspired by the good work already under way in many places, excellent examples of public services responding to local community needs, and the courage of those who have taken a stand against the people ruining their communities has been an inspiration.

The government's antisocial behaviour white paper, launched in March, and the Antisocial Behaviour Bill, currently in the House of Lords, took on board the stories we had heard repeatedly in order to set out a clear, innovative agenda to tackle the the small minority who are making life a misery for the decent majority.

Now we have moved into the next phase of the agenda: the antisocial behaviour action plan. The bulk of my unit's work will be to help fulfil the plan's ambitious aims by ensuring the powers the government is delivering will be used by councils, police, courts, landlords and other relevant parties.

Action and support will be targeted at 10 areas – Brighton, Bristol, Birmingham, Manchester, Sunderland, Sheffield, Leeds, Camden, Westminster and Liverpool – to tackle beggars, nightmare neighbours and environmental crime. The unit will work intensively with these areas to enable them to achieve real results and improve the lives of their residents. Where these areas lead, others will follow.

A network of expert prosecutors, skilled in antisocial behaviour cases, is being put in place. They will make sure the voices of victims and witnesses are heard throughout the system. New guidelines for sentencing such cases are being issued to magistrates, and frontline police officers will be trained to improve their responses to the problem.

We are here to help
Ultimately, we want public services that never say no to a request for help, driven by demands for action from individuals and communities. The services in question will have to raise their game to meet the challenge, but we don't want them to be afraid of this.

My unit will pioneer this "never say no" approach. If we are asked for assistance by a local council, police force, court or landlord, we will offer it. We will be your champions in government and will break down barriers to action across Whitehall.

For a start, we are investing £22m over the next two-and-a-half years in crime reduction partnerships. There will also be a single phone number and website for practitioners to use that will provide help and advice on all aspects of the legislation. In short, we will accept no excuse for inaction in the face of community need.

We are determined that every neighbourhood benefits from the good work that goes on across the country. We are setting up a new touring academy to bring practitioners together, so they can share their knowledge and experience.

All this work will be provided under the banner of the Together campaign which, like the action plan, was launched this week.

The name is a clear indication of how we are approaching this problem and how we want to see it solved: together there is no problem too big, no solution is out of reach. Together, we can change communities and people's lives for the better.

The victims are at the centre of our work. They will provide the impetus for change in public services by being demanding, impatient for action.

The government has already achieved a great deal in the past year: record police numbers, backed by thousands of community support officers; the ever-increasing use of antisocial behaviour orders; more acceptable behaviour contracts; pioneering the use of fixed penalty notices for disorder. But there is still more to be done. It won't be easy, but together we can do it for the benefit of everyone.