Website of the Department of Health

LASSL (2004)3 : The Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements (the MAPPA) and the "duty to co-operate"

Section 325 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 imposes a 'duty to co-operate' with the MAPPA Responsible Authority (police, prisons and probation) upon a number of bodies including councils with social services responsibilities. This section comes into force in April 2004. The enclosure summarises what the MAPPA are and outlines the nature of the 'duty to cooperate'. The duty requires councils to perform existing statutory functions co-operatively with the Responsible Authority in each of the 42 Areas of England and Wales, to the extent that those functions involve sexual and violent offenders. The duty is reciprocal, requiring the Responsible Authority to co-operate with those bodies upon which the duty to co-operate is imposed. The MAPPA are a local, area-based set of arrangements, although a national framework defined in statutory Guidance provides coherence and consistency. In recognition of the local basis of the MAPPA, the Act requires that the precise nature of the 'duty to co-operate' is determined by the bodies upon which the duty is imposed, in agreement with the Responsible Authority in each area. It will take time for those agreements to be established and implementation of the duty will therefore be incremental but in place by December 2004.