Agenda and minutes

Venue: Hendon Town Hall, The Burroughs, London NW4 4BQ

Contact: Salar Rida, 020 8359 7113 Email: Salar.Rida@Barnet.gov.uk 

Items
No. Item

1.

Introductions, Apologies for Absence and Minutes of Previous meeting pdf icon PDF 84 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Chairman of the Safer Communities Partnership Board, Councillor David Longstaff welcomed all attendees to the meeting.

Apologies were received from Kiran Vagarwal (LBB), Helen Twigg (Victim Support), Laura Featley (DWP),Jon Dickinson (LBB), Jamie Blake (LBB), Sam Rosengard (Community Rehabilitation Company) and Bradley Few (MOPAC).

 

RESOLVED-That the minutes of the previous meeting held on 22 April 2016 be approved as a correct record.

 

Peter Clifton provided an update on the action log from the previous minutes.

Action 1: Julie Pal agreed to bring an update to the next committee meeting

Action 2: Peter Clifton will send the breakdown to members following the meeting

Action 3: Supt. Paula Light mentioned that action 3 links to her item later on in the agenda

Action 4: this was included on the agenda

Action 5: The Chairman and Ms Pal have met and will continue to meet. Ms Pal suggested setting up a meeting with Susie Kemp who is the Vice-Chair of CommUNITY Barnet.

Action 6: This has been produced

Action 7:  the main achievements will be included in the strategic crime needs assessment report

 

 

2.

Burglary Reduction Group - Update

Minutes:

Peter Clifton introduced the item which related to an update regarding burglary reduction. He outlined that Barnet has the highest rate of residential burglary in London. The estimated cost of burglary is £10 million. Burglary is mostly committed by people travelling to Barnet. The reason that Barnet attracts burglary is because it is located in North London, it is an outer London Borough, there is high proportion of houses compared to flats, there are more jewellery, lower number of police officers per square km, excellent transport links and the physical layout of streets and houses. In the long-term the level of burglaries seems stable. Burglaries peak during winter months, there is a 40% increase in the winter in comparison with other months during the year. The North and East parts of the borough experience a winter peak. Golders Green area experiences a summer peak. NW4 and NW9 areas are exceptions because they do not experience a decrease. Jewellery, computer related equipment and money are usually stolen. The peak victim age is usually 40-60. 80 plus are more vulnerable individuals than others. There has also been a change in offenders’ age. The 25-29 group has increased in the last 4-5 year period. 57% of those arrested have come from either Barnet or outside of London.

 

Superintendent Paula Light added that offences have changed to gangs and drugs related offences. The older generation of victims can afford semi-detached houses and thus are more wealth.

 

Mr Clifton stated that actions to be delivered include automatic number plate recognition, repeat victim burglary response scheme and piloting a no cold calling scheme in a location suffering from distraction burglaries. Finally, Mr Clifton explained the objectives of the burglary reduction action plan for 2016/17.

 

Steve Leader also added that the fire brigade perform cold calling to identify vulnerable adults.

 

The Chairman asked how the communications plan has progressed so far. Mr Clifton responded that this piece of work is still under progress.

 

The Chairman mentioned that the council is realigning the communications team to make sure there is one person responsible from the communications team for specific projects. It is also important to promote more stories that will act as deterrent. Bridget O’Dwyer mentioned that she is happy to send contact details for information that needs to be disseminated to GPs (action).

 

It was agreed that Mr Clifton would send to the Chairman the date of the next meeting with the Burglary Reduction Group (action).

 

Julie Pal also added that it might be useful to have defined measures in place that will help view the direction of travel. 

 

 

3.

MOPAC update

Minutes:

Peter Clifton introduced the item which related to an update from MOPAC.

Funding has run on a four year cycle. This is now due to end in March 2017 and no decisions have been made about any plans after March 2017.

 

It is up to the next Mayor of London and Deputy Mayor of Policing and Crime to decide whether to ringfence any funding. MOPAC will be seeking for a decision in October 2016. This is also linked to the Police and Crime and any funding opportunities will align to that plan. It is important to start thinking about contingency plans in case there is no further available funding. Funding has so far supported the project of reducing drug offending among young people and  an adults public health project. 

 

In order to understand what kind of programmes MOPAC is seeking to fund members should look at MOPAC’s manifesto which includes: violence against women and children, sexual crimes, knife and gang youth crime, hate crime, improving the victim experience and services they receive.

 

The Chairman added that the Mayor of London announced an additional dedicated ward officer across London. Superintendent Light asked whether this is an additional ward officer of whether they will need to move an officer to another area.

 

Mr Clifton stated that there is no guarantee that the funding stream would continue after March 2017. The Chairman added that funding is going to be announced from October 2016. Duncan Tessier asked whether there is any way they can influence the funding discussions.

The Chairman stated that everyone will be contacted and Ms Kiran Vagarwal will be in touch.

 

4.

Community Rehabilitation Company Update pdf icon PDF 379 KB

Minutes:

Mr Clifton introduced the item that related to an update from the Community Rehabilitation Company. The Cohort model was launched on 7 December 2015. This includes working with different age cohorts of offenders. There is a separate cohort for women offenders, mental health and learning disabilities. One of the key benefits of this model is that it offers a tailored approach to certain groups of offenders. For example women’s cohort is about women’s journey to offending, patterns and needs which are quite different from male offenders.

Community Rehabilitation Company works together with MOPAC to help brake the cycle of female offenders and create hubs. The first hub has been created with Sutton council and they are looking to work with other boroughs to set up similar hubs.

 

The second key development has been Through-the-Gate service which has been launched in May 2015. This is an end to end resettlement service for offenders exiting prison.

One of the key questions of Integrated Offender Management is the impact and effect moving to this cohort model. The feedback received is that IOM has been successful in Barnet because of a lot of work with senior probation officers. This is not the case for all London boroughs.

The Chairman requested a report on performance in Barnet when this becomes available. Mr Clifton agreed to circulate the figures within the next three weeks (action)

 The Chairman also requested how the council’s partners are working with CRC and Mr Clifton agreed to provide an update (action)

 

5.

Barnet Police - Crime Trends and performance

Minutes:

Superintendent Paula Light introduced the item which related to an update on crime trends and performance.

She stated that the policing plan was going to be re-written. The 2016-17 plan was focusing on protection of vulnerable people, domestic assaults, Child Sexual Exploitation, missing episodes and sexual offending. They are improving the way they manage offenders particularly around sexual offending. Police aims to start working around community resolution and suspended orders. Burglary and theft will always be part of their plan. They are still struggling with figures however, they had some really good results recently.

 

They are working together with younger cohorts, adults and victims. They are looking to introduce an adult MASH. Police are hoping to receive an uplift in staff, currently investigations are being referred to emergency response teams and they need to proactively target offenders. They have seen fantastic results since last November and they are liaising with partners to see how they can increase efficiency.

Superintendent Light agreed to circulate to committee members an update on the transfer that has taken place around investigations (action).

 

Mr Roger Kemp asked whether following the Mayoral elections if the partnership between Harrow, Barnet and Brent would proceed.  Ms Light responded that this is not off the table but nothing can be confirmed at this stage.

 

6.

Barnet Community Safety Strategy 2016/17

Minutes:

Mr Clifton introduced the item which related to the Community Safety Strategy 2016-17.

 

He outlined the three main priorities: victim centre approach, maintain reduction in crime and Anti-social Behaviour and improve the perception of Barnet as a safe place to live, work and visit.

 

Consultation is part of the process of updating the new strategy, 3000 people have expressed their views on what the partnership should be working on. This includes: reducing volume crimes such as burglary, reducing ASB, preventative work with young people and reducing violent crime. Fly-tipping and littering have been common concerns of ASB.

 

Mr Clifton stated that there is a proposal to add an additional priority outcome:

 

“Effective and wide-ranging partnerships are in place between the local authority, statutory and non-statutory partners, community groups and  faith institutions, to help mitigate risks from terrorism and extremism and to support the boroughs diverse communities.”

 

Mr Clifton outlined the existing priorities of the strategy:.

 

  • Residents and businesses feel confident that the police and council respond to crime and ASB in their area.
  • Residents and businesses are engaged and informed about community safety and the action we have taken in their area.
  • Victims of Domestic Violence and Hate Crime are confident in reporting incidents and the Partnership intervenes to prevent repeat victimisation.
  • The Partnership will work to reduce Serious Youth Violence with a focus on young people as victims and offenders.
  • Sustained reductions in re-offending.
  • Sustained reductions in Burglary and other high volume crime types, such as: Violence with Injury, Robbery, Theft of Motor Vehicle, Theft from Motor Vehicle, Theft from Person, Criminal Damage.

 

Mr Clifton outlined proposed amendments to the action plans relating to each of these six existing priorities.

 

7.

Update from Youth matters

Minutes:

Duncan Tessier introduced the report which related to an update from Youth Justice Matters Board.

There has been an overall reduction in comparison with statistical neighbours. They currently have only one person in custody. The numbers have been falling however, the types of crime that take place are very serious. There have been serious incidents in the last months. The service is taking this agenda very seriously, there is a good strategy in place and they are working with the police and other agencies. 

One of the key focus points is the relationship between youth offending and social care. Family services are trying to up skill social care workers. They are currently looking at threats within the family and social workers will need to be trained to look at threats coming outside of the family. Partnership is very important. This is a challenging environment and the risk is very high.

 

Superintendent Light said that the work of the Youth Justice Matters board has been very useful and thanked Duncan for its work.

 

8.

Performance Dashboard pdf icon PDF 563 KB

Minutes:

Mr Clifton introduced the item which related to a performance dashboard update. In terms of burglary there has been a positive performance in the last quarter. There has still been a 2% increase during the twelve months in contrast with the last twelve months.

 

There has been a 45% reduction in robbery compared to the year before and a 15% increase in the last quarter.

There is serious youth violence in the borough which has remained on the same level a year ago. There has been an increase in knife crime and gun crime. In relation to domestic violence there has been a drop in the sanction detection rate in contrast with the last twelve months.

In regards to Anti-Social Behaviour, there has been a slight increase in re-offending in comparison with the year before. There is a lag on this figures due to the way re-offending is measured.

 

On youth offending, there has been a decrease on first time entrants and increase around re-offending. The Chairman asked that was the change in the way re-offending is measured. Mr Clifton responded that there has been a change in measuring re-offending to align it with proven re-offending and the community safety team has been using this new way of measuring.

Chairman said that people tend to feel more vulnerable when they see flytipping and littering.

 

The Chairman asked whether the number of people flytipping and littering has been reduced and if that is going to affect people and how vulnerable they feel, then this should be reported to the Environment Committee.

 

The Chairman queried why there are so many guns in Barnet leading to such a high number of gun incidents and Superintendent Light responded that the same gun is usually used and added that there isn’t a huge amount of guns in Barnet. The increase in guns seems big because they were not used in the past. There are cross-gang issues in the north part of London which are related to drugs and the police is working on this.

 

The Chairman asked whether Barnet was likely to see an increase in domestic violence and Superintendent Light responded that there is work currently done in regards to domestic violence and there is a unit shared with Harrow that will come back to Barnet. In Barnet there is the largest number of suspects for domestic harassment. The police is currently focusing on how they can get their victims quicker on board.

 

9.

Proposed items for next SCPB: 28 Oct 2016

Minutes:

Mr Clifton introduced the item which related to proposed items for the next committee meeting on 28 October 2016.

 

Items were:

 

·         Understanding and responding to the trends and performance of community confidence

·         Community Safety Alternative Delivery Model

·         Communication Strategy update

·         Post 2016/17 funding plans

·         CCTV and ANPR update

·         Anti-social behaviour enforcement strategies

 

The board noted the items for the next meeting

 

 

10.

Any Other Business

Minutes:

The Chairman informed Board members that the time will change to 10:00am for the next meetings. He has also requested that members attend the committee more often.

 

Ms O’Dwyer mentioned that they have procured the new young people substance misuse service which is launching on 1 September 2016 and wanted to thank the youth offending team.