Frequently asked questions

 A: To join an existing Neighbourhood Watch scheme please follow this link: Find my local group. Guidance on setting up a Neighbourhood Watch scheme can be found here.

A: To see if there is a group in your local area, please enter your postcode on this page. If there is no group covering your road, consider setting one up.

A: We use Neighbourhood Alert, a government accredited, highly secure, GDPR compliant, system to store your details. If you have any technical queries contact them on: support@neighbourhoodalert.co.uk.

Some Neighbourhood Watch groups do become inactive. If a Neighbourhood Watch group is ready to close or has had no activity for many months, how the group is delivered needs to be reconsidered and may benefit from working with other community groups in the area.

First, contact Central Support Team and ask them to check what happened to the previous Coordinator – they may have moved on or had to stop running the group for personal reasons. 

Then, you should try to establish what the group had hoped to achieve when it was set up – using the same four questions as if you are setting up a whole new group:

• When the group was first set up, what were the expectations – what did people hope to gain from the group?
• What activities were there to support the group?
• What were the commitments in terms of time, resources and finance?
• Were your activities and commitments enough to meet the expectations you agreed on?

Having listed these expectations, activities and commitments, the next stage is to look at each item and ask: ‘Did the group achieve this or not? If not, what can be done differently this time?’

Also, try to think of the good things that were achieved and work out how you can build on them to relaunch the group.

Top tips…

• Changing the image: While you obviously need to keep the title ‘Neighbourhood Watch’, you could slightly expand the group's area and alter its name, even if it covers virtually the same area. You can also change the image by altering the design of your newsletter or publicity material. You could consider setting up a website or social media channel.
• Timing: When you consider the timing of your relaunch, try to take advantage of local events and align this with local priorities or deliver the launch along with other local community partners.
• Keeping it going: Keep checking that you are still on course to achieve your objectives. Consider reviewing your position every three months, at least in the initial stages.

A: Every geographical area has a slightly different policy to verify or approve their local groups. Contact your area representative to find out the policy in your area. 

There is a team of volunteers called Multi Scheme Administrators in most of the Police Force Areas across England and Wales and they are the specially trained people who will process your application to start a group in your area.

If you hear nothing from them, please do contact the Associations for that area.

A. Groups aren’t approved by the Central Support Team, because they don’t have the local specific knowledge to determine whether a group is legitimate or not. Groups are approved by local Neighbourhood Watch volunteers who have been trained to administer their section of the database and have knowledge of local procedures for approving schemes, which differ from one part of the country to another.

However, local volunteers have not yet come forward to cover all parts of England and Wales. This means that in some areas, all groups appear as ‘self-declared’ because there is no administrator in place to verify them. If self-declared groups didn’t appear on the map at all, it would be unfair on schemes which fall within those areas.

A. The Register of Neighbourhood Watch groups, which populates the postcode search, is held on a piece of software called Neighbourhood Alert. 

If you are a Coordinator of a group, but have not yet registered on the system, please do consider joining us. We have a range of resources just for you and would love for you to get involved and reap the rewards of being a Neighbourhood Watch Coordinator who is connected, engaged and supported.

A. We have a set of national guidelines that all our members are expected to abide by. We take inappropriate behaviour seriously and advise that anyone breaching these guidelines should not be recognised as a group coordinator, either locally or nationally.

We have a network of Neighbourhood Watch volunteers, who work closely with the Associations, from whom we take guidance when determining whether a group is suitable to be displayed on the postcode search. If we are advised that a coordinator is breaching the guidelines or that a group is not functioning as a Neighbourhood Watch scheme, Central Support Team will remove the group from the postcode search. We may also remove the coordinator from the database altogether, depending on the individual circumstances.

Your local area page will have details of this. Find your local area page here.

A: We have area representatives covering large geographical areas. You can find your local representative here.

A:

• Call 101 to report non-emergency incidents to your local Police force
• Call 999 if:
  • you’re reporting a crime that’s in progress,
  • there is a likelihood of the offender being apprehended if police officers respond immediately, or
  • someone is in immediate danger.
• Call Crimestoppers on 0800 555111 to report crime completely anonymously.
• Call Action Fraud on 0300 123 2040 or report it online at www.actionfraud.police.uk to report all incidents of fraud.

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