The Director
of Environment and Commercial Services will be in attendance to provide an
update on the Safer Community Partnership.
Minutes:
The Chair invited the Head of Stronger Communities to present her presentation on the Stronger Community Partnership.
During the presentation the following points were made:
• The Community Safety Partnership (CSP) was a statutory partnership made up of key responsible authorities who had equal responsibility for reducing crime and anti-social behaviour under the Crime and Disorder Act 1998. Responsible authorities in this context included the Police, Health Services, Local Authorities, Fire and Rescue Authorities, Probation and Youth Offending Services.
• All such authorities worked collaboratively with other statutory and non-statutory organizations as well as the voluntary sector and local people to ensure the CSP’s objectives were met.
• The CSP was required to produce the Strategic Intelligence Assessment every two years.
• Structurally, the CSP Executive Group had links with the Local Criminal Justice Board, the Health and Well-Being Board and with the Children's Trust.
• There were a number of themed groups such as PREVENT and domestic abuse groups and the MARAC. There were also operational groups such as the Multi Agency Case Conferencing group.
• The CSP had made important achievements including the creation of Task and Finish groups across the town that enabled effective targeting of specific issues. These groups fed back to Ward Members and the public on their progress.
• An example was Cottingham Drive in East Middlesbrough that had been targeted by youths taking part in Anti-Social Behaviour. The Task and Finish group helped install rapid CCTV cameras with joint patrols between Wardens, Thirteen Group and the Police.
• The CSP also had a statutory responsibility for reducing reoffending. The Council's Community Safety Partnership Officer began a multi-agency working group 2018 involving partners in Roseberry Park’s in-patient team, Community Staff and the Police to reduce violence toward NHS staff. After being refreshed and moved into the wider community, this project has led to improved communication between the NHS and Police via non-urgent crime reporting tools and focussed training for police officers in how they could support NHS colleagues.
• This initiative was being progressed with the development of a training video for both the Police and NHS and included raising awareness of the Mental Health Act.
• There had also been successes with regards to reducing repeat offending in retail related crimes. A great deal of work had been done with the Town Centre team resulting in community impact statements as well as Nitrous Oxide Statement and Malicious Communications Statements. Such statements assisted in prosecutions as they detailed the negative effects those crimes had on communities.
• The reducing re-offending group had also reviewed its priorities which included a priority to reduce violence linked to malicious communications. Malicious communications was becoming a significant problem locally, and nationally, given the increased amount of people using online communications.
• An overarching reducing violence plan had also been provisionally drawn up that applied across the entire town that would include a multitude of partners.
• Other achievements included raising £8,000 to fund, install and monitor rapid deployment cameras at Pallister Park and Norfolk shops following anti-social behaviour as well as working with Thirteen Group following an issue with increased empty properties and drug dealing around the Eden Road area of Grove Hill. Following the development of close relationships with local residents a multi-agency approach was taken that led to the situation being dealt with.
• The Council also received Safer Streets Funding totalling £400,000 to reduce acquisitive crime. This project involved collaborative working with the Police and Crime Commissioner’s office. The funding needed to be spent on a specific locality, and in this case was being delivered through the Locality Working Project in Newport Ward. The funding covered the installation of 12 new static CCTV cameras and 20 new lighting columns both of which helped to reduce acquisitive crime.
• An important subgroup of the CSP was the Domestic Abuse Strategic Partnership (DASP). An internal audit was undertaken with recommendations from that audit being carried out. The group’s Terms of Reference had been reviewed and a domestic abuse strategy had been developed.
• One of the group’s aims was to promote awareness. As part of this it coordinated fine Domestic Homicide Reviews with most recent review published in July 2020 with the next one due in March 2021.
• A number of training sessions had also been delivered with adult and children’s social care as well as health care professionals. The Council’s Domestic Abuse lead oversaw the work and ensured that best practice was shared across the partnership. The partnership ensured that all key stakeholders were kept informed of latest developments in relation to domestic abuse and how victims could be supported via various communications plans.
• An important tool to reach potential victims of domestic abuse was the DASP website which contained helpful tools people could use to access services.
• Work was being carried out to ensure that Council, and relevant stakeholders across the Cleveland area were Domestic Abuse Bill ready and reviews were being carried out across the whole family system and to ensure the effectiveness of the MARAC (Multi-Agency Risk Assessment Conference).
• Several initiatives were due to be launched from April 2021 including Room to Change which partnered with Harbour and North Star housing so dispersed accommodation could be provided to perpetrators to engage in meaningful behavioural change programmes meaning victims did not have to move out of their properties.
• All performance information relating to Domestic Homicide Reviews were uploaded into an electronic system so the Domestic Homicide Review performance groups has oversight of those measures and can be updated in real time.
• One of the more high profile achievements delivered by the CSP, in conjunction with the Police and Crime Commissioner was the Knife Angel installation that helped to raise the issue of violent crime in Middlesbrough.
• The CSP also produced the motorbike strategy in conjunction with the Police which led to the creation of 59 signs in key areas where motorbike mis-use was blighting the lives of residents.
• The CSP was also introducing Active Intelligence Mapping (AIM) to assist with combatting crime. A multi-agency hub was provided with analytical data from a wide range of sources and was able to plot that on a map or on graphs to provide trends. This provided teams with an overview of issues and what needed to be done to tackle the issue. This would also allow for more joined up approach to responses.
• AIM data could be used in a multitude of ways and could be targeted at Ward level or by incident type.
• The process of data collection and coordination had a second stage that focussed on validating the value of the AIM process. The main emphasis of the second stage is to monitor the actions and ensure that actions were SMART and to ensure that approaches remained collaborative.
A Member commented that part of the process to collect intelligence through AIM was a reliance on the 101 system. However, some residents had experienced problems with that service resulting in a loss of some important intelligence for AIM.
It was confirmed that the Council could not comment on the effectiveness of the 101 system as this was the responsibility of the Police. It was also commented that AIM was not only reliant on Police information and that while some people may have experienced difficulties reporting problems via 101, AIM was a collection of wider intelligence sources such as reports to the Warden Service or information provided by Ward Councillors, and so was still very accurate.
A Member queried if AIM was downloadable so Councillors could utilise it. It was confirmed that due to the sensitive nature of the data involved it was not although there were some potential development opportunities in this regard.
A Member thanked the Head of Stronger Communities for her department’s work in resolving an issue with youths in his ward.
It was queried if the Safer Street Funding was deemed a success was there a possibility it could be rolled out to other locations in the town. It was confirmed that the funding available for Newport was prescriptive and time limited. It was also confirmed that funding for Safer Streets was available across the Cleveland area. However it was clarified that the Council intended to bid for future awards.
It was also queried if the Domestic Abuse Strategic Partnership had any direct links with operation Phoenix that was led by the Police. It was clarified that each sub group was created in its own right and as the CSP was a strategic body direct links to individual operations may not exist.
ORDERED: That the
information presented be noted.