Premier

The Departments of the Premier and Police Oversight & Community Safety informed me as follows:

(1)  The Cooperation Agreement, as referred to in the question is in support of the broader objectives of the Western Cape Safety Plan launched in 2019. The Western Cape Government considers the Cooperation Agreement critical to the alignment of the efforts of the relevant stakeholders towards a shared vision for safety and security within the City of Cape Town encompassing various initiatives, programmes and strategies aimed at promoting a safe, secure and conducive environment, which is the objective of the Safety Plan.

1. No direct expenditure has been incurred
2. The integration areas and areas of cooperation are set at clause 2.1 and 5 of the attached Cooperation Agreement
3. The Cooperation Agreement is in support of the broader objective of the Safety Plan, but focusses on initiatives within the City of Cape Town. The LEAP Agreement governs arrangements between the City and the Province as it relatesto the Law Enforcement Advancement initiatives, which are also in support of the broader objectives of the Safety Plan
4. (a) The outcomes of the study are captured on pages 3 and 4 of the attached documents
5. The Western Cape was a participant in the study as part of a collaborative project between SAPS, the WCG and the City into hotspot policing in Delft, Khayelitsha, Nyanga and Gugulethu
6. The Western Cape Government (WCG) did not fund this study and information on the costing of the study should be obtained from the Hans Seidel Foundation
7. The study clearly demonstrated the effectiveness of the Western Cape Government’s method of data-driven deployments and evidence-based policing, and the WCG continues to implement these methods as much as possible within the constraints of currently available resources. However, given that policing remains a mandate of the national sphere of government, it is vital that the SAPS works with the WCG to implement these methodologies on a broader scale. The WCG hopes to further this objective using the platform of the Cooperation Agreement
8. (a) While no other study has been done on the same level of granular detail as that mentioned above, research has consistently demonstrated the efficacy of the Western Cape Government’s approach to evidence-based policing.
9. (i) Research by the Institute of Security Studies previously found that the Western Cape’s murder rate steadily decreased as the Safety Plan was implemented in the years leading up to 2023.

(ii) The attached report is already in the public domain.

5. The conference fundamentally reshaped the Western Cape Government’s (WCG) approach to safety, expanding it beyond law enforcement to address the social drivers of violence. It introduced a gradual public health approach, emphasizing a more holistic, collaborative, and evidence-informed strategy for tackling safety. This shift placed a stronger focus on violence prevention, guided by data and research. The WCG has subsequently implemented a Violence Prevention Programme which sees data from the Department of Health and Wellness’s admissions systems used to analyse trends of violence in Western Cape communities, in order to allocate resources more effectively. A violence prevention Unit has since been established within the Department of Health and Wellness.

Key findings and recommendations from the conference were integrated into the Safety Plan and the 2019–2024 Provincial Strategic Plan (PSP).

6. The Safety Plan is in the process of being updated and will consider learnings and research over the period. The outcome will be used to determine the need for another conference on safety.