Agenda and minutes

The Chairman welcomed all. He introduced himself and informed the Committee that he is Lead for Policing and Community Safety at the London Borough of Barnet (LBB).

Apologies were received from Amlan Ghoshal, Fiona Bateman, Tina McElligot, Claire Ansdell and Dr Tamara Djuretic.

The minutes of the meeting held on 26 July 2019 were approved as an accurate record.

None.

Relevant to Priority 7 of the Community Safety Strategy

Ray Booth, CEO, Barnet Mencap

The Community Safety Manager spoke to the report and introduced the Hate Crime Awareness Coordinator.

The Community Safety Manager reported that the nine Hate Crime reporting centres in Barnet were working smoothly with staff fully trained in hate crime reporting. The project was funded by the MOPAC Crime Prevention Fund and provided an alternative way of reporting Hate Crime. In addition victims were supported and referred to appropriate groups through the Hate Crime Awareness Coordinator.

Communications campaigns included Hate Crime Awareness Week in October 2019, which had taken place at Burnt Oak Library, BOOST in Childs Hill, Colindale (Barnet offices), Broadwalk Shopping Centre and Golders Green bus station. Also 150 residents and staff in Barnet had signed up in 2018 to become Hate Crime Reporting Champions and the number of these continued to grow. National Hate Crime Awareness Week would take place again in October 2020.

Frontline staff from 14 organisations including Barnet Homes, Middlesex University and Barnet Council had been trained in Hate Crime awareness. Also 14 Hate Crime Awareness workshops had been delivered to 14 organisations including Brent Cross Shopping Centre, Homeless Action Barnet and BOOST (Barnet Homes).

Hate Crime Forums were held quarterly with representatives from the reporting centres discussing levels and types of reporting. Information from the reporting centres was shared with other hate crime prevention networks.

The Hate Crime Awareness Coordinator reported that factors such as disputes between neighbours or vulnerable adult victims and safeguarding issues, contributed to reluctance to report hate crime.

The short terms goals of the project were to continue to further awareness and staff training into organisations such as the NHS and in public venue and libraries. Increasing the number of reporting centres was also being considered.

The Chairman asked why the particular locations had been chosen for the Hate Crime Awareness week stalls. He Hate Crime Awareness Coordinator stated that the team tried to move these around the Borough. A lot of hate crime was reported on public transport so they had focused near bus stations. The libraries and other locations had been chosen due to their high footfall. She noted that the team would be happy to carry out events at any time in other parts of the Borough.

The Assistant Director Community Safety and Regulatory Services noted that the reporting of hate crime was expected to increase due to this project and this would be a positive sign. Over the next 12 months the team would be looking to implement the same approach (Third Party Reporting Programme) in relation to domestic violence (DV) with a series of networks around the Borough. This would be another example of bringing together the voluntary and community sector to help to deliver community safety in Barnet.

·        Probation reforms and implications for the Safer Communities Partners

·        Results from the CRC inspection and next steps

·        Relevant to priority 5 of the Community Safety Strategy

Kauser Mukhtar

Contracts and Partnerships Lead – North Area London CRC

The Contracts and Partnerships Lead – North Area, London CRC spoke to her slides. The full Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Probation (HMIP) report published in August 2019 was circulated with the agenda.

London CRC was the first Community Rehabilitation Company in the country to achieve a ‘good’ or ‘requires improvement’ in all ten areas inspected. Some of the actions required had already been taken. The new case management system, Omnia, meant that case reviews and audits were carried out more regularly.

The Head of Housing Management, Barnet Homes asked about the impact of liaising with other agencies on criminogenics. The Reducing Offending Officer, LBB stated that BOOST (Burnt Oak Opportunity Support Team) had reduced reoffending and currently some work was being undertaken with black and minority ethnic (BME) service users. The scheme was also looking at a programme to support the gypsy and travellers’ community and service users who had had gang involvement. He would share further information with the Board.

Action: Reducing Offending Officer

The Reducing Offending Officer reported that Amanda Lunness, Partnership Network Coordinator, had been seconded to the Troubled Families Programme to make sure that vulnerable adult service users were engaging with it. She would also be appointing a Lead for Adult MASH (Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub).

The Assistant Director Community Safety and Regulatory Services noted that it would be helpful if CRC could provide an update at the meeting of SCPB on 3 April. She was interested in the service users in transition from juvenile to adult services and was keen to know what kind of service would be provided by the NPS for offenders in Barnet when the service is renationalised. Some borough-based data would be helpful including the number of offenders managed by NPS, repeat victimisation rates and substance misuse orders. Also the issue of transitional safeguarding had been raised at the Adults Safeguarding Board and it had been suggested that the Integrated Offender Management (IOM) team use the IOM scheme to bridge the gap - the risk of exploitation did not disappear at age 18. In Barnet 100 individuals had moved from the youth to adult services in the past year and some of the statutory responsibilities for the council no longer applied at this point. The Contracts and Partnerships Lead CRC stated that she is reviewing interventions with young adults. She could provide a presentation to the Board if required.

Action: Contracts and Partnerships Lead, CRC

The Reducing Offending Officer noted that local substance misuse providers were about to be recommissioned and he would look into any gaps in services before the Quarter 2 meeting. The Contracts and Partnerships Lead CRC noted the above request and would also ask the CRC Substance Misuse Lead to attend the meeting.

Action: Contracts and Partnerships Lead, CRC

Probation reform

The Community Safety Manager presented slides from the HM Prison & Probation Service.  Case management of all service users on Community Orders, license release from custody and serving prisoners would be delivered by the NPS from Spring 2021.  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

·        Youth Justice Board update

·        Troubled Families,

·        Cohorts were there are links to the Safer Communities Partnership Strategy – including Domestic Violence and VAWG, Crime and ASB and demand pressures.

·        (Relevant to Priority 4 of the Community Safety Strategy)

Tina McElligot

Assistant Director of Family Services

The Strategic Lead, Partnerships and Engagement, Family Services LBB spoke to the slides on the Troubled Families Programme and youth offending.

The Phase 2 Troubled Families Programme would come to an end on 31^st March 2020 The Ministry of Housing, Local Government and Communities has indicated that there would be developments to and a continuation of the Programme beyond March 2020.

The Strategic Lead, Partnerships, Family Services reported that there had been a slight increase in open cases brought to the Youth Offending Team (YOT) in Barnet, likely due to the summer holiday period. The primary age of offenders was 17 with a disproportionate number of these being black British. The offences were mainly violence against the person, drug offenses and robberies.

The Troubled Families Programme focused on the influence of adverse childhood experiences; one fifth of the offenders had witnessed domestic violence. Physical abuse, housing problems and neglect were also issues for this cohort. Drug misuse (mainly cannabis and alcohol) was present in close to half the offenders.

51% of acts of violence against the person had involved a knife. Some of these were committed outside Barnet by offenders from Barnet.

15% of the youth offender cohort were currently identified as being at risk of exploitation.

The Strategic Lead added that with the YOT now co-located with family services, coordination was better and the team had a clearer view of the impact of earlier life experiences on this group. Home Office funding had been provided in 2018 for Barnet to work with MAC-UK, Art Against Knives, (AAK) and Growing Against Violence Education (GAV-Ed) to deliver a preventative school-based programme for Year 6 as well as Creative Safe Spaces within the community. MAC-UK was providing therapeutic minded conversations with young people and the partnership working was increasing opportunities and diversion for the young people. Currently 290 young people were engaged in AAK in Barnet, which could be attended by drop-in or referral. The projects were largely nail bars, combat academies and music labs. The team continued to work keep the cohort in mind to ensure the services were appropriate.

The team has given briefings in 120 primary school assemblies in the borough. The schools had been chosen in relation to their proximity to offences. The aim was to strengthen partnerships with the schools and to enable staff to understand the experiences of young people in Barnet. Head teachers had expressed concerns about the future trajectories of pupils in some areas and were asking for help. The team ensured that school officers attended Growing Against Violence training sessions.

The Strategic Lead reported that data on county lines activity has been made available through the MOPAC-funded Rescue and Response Project. This provided four intelligence analysts in each London quadrant. St Giles Trust is providing support following referrals from police and social services. 83% of county lines victims referred to Rescue and Response across London were male. There had been 568 young people referred in Year 1, with 13 of these being  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7.

·        Standing agenda item – Performance dashboard update on performance and crime trends

·        Relevant to all priority areas of the Community Safety Strategy

Ben Norfolk

Partnership Performance, LBB

The Data Analyst, Community Safety provided an update together with slides.

Robbery had increased in Barnet in February and July 2019 but the number of incidents in Barnet remained below the London average for robbery. Barnet had the second lowest level of violent crime in London and knife and gun crime remained low.

There had been an increase in domestic violence reporting and an increase in anti-social behaviour but ASB remained below the London average.

The Chairman noted that the increase in robbery was alarming and asked for more information on this. The Assistant Director Community Safety would provide more information to the next meeting including the response needed. She would liaise with the Metropolitan Police to provide this information. DI Rawlinson noted that this was on the Met Police’s radar and they had more officers available at present to deal with this issue in the relevant areas.

Action: Assistant Director Community Safety and Regulatory Services

The Reducing Offending Officer noted that he was also investigating the cause of this spike and noted that a broader partnership approach was being taken including looking at housing and probation.

The Data Analyst would provide data on offender management in Barnet at the next meeting.

Action: Data Analyst

Kiran Vagarwal

Strategic Lead Safer Communities

Barnet Council

24 January 2020

Borough Command Unit – one year on – DI James Rawlinson/Met Police

London Fire Brigade update – Steve Leader

Partnership paper – Reducing Offending/Autumn nights/robbery/burglary – Kiran Vagarwal/Met Police

Family Services update – Tina McElligot

Environmental crime – Kiran Vagarwal

3 April 2020

The Board agreed to move the Prevent and ASB items to the April meeting.

An update on the London CRC merger would be added to the April meeting – Kauser Mukhtar.

The Chairman announced on behalf of Fiona Bateman that as part of Safeguarding Month (November) she would email details of activities to the Board the following week.

The Board agreed to continue with a 09:00 hrs start time for future meetings. Any problems with this should be fed back to tracy.scollin@barnet.gov.uk.

Action: Governance Officer

Friday 24 January 2020, 09:00 hrs.