Agenda and minutes

The Chairman welcomed all to the meeting.

RESOLVED that the minutes of the meeting held on 22 October 2022 be agreed as a correct record.

Apologies for absence had been received from:

·         Chief Inspector Ed Baildon, Met Police

·         Alice Bird, MOPAC Policy Officer

·         Reshma Hirani, Hate Crime Reporting Coordinator, Barnet Mencap

·         Fiona Bateman, Independent Chair, Barnet Safeguarding Adults Board

None.

The Board received a performance update covering the period August– November 2021 in the revised format and were invited to give comments in relation to how this information is presented. The Board were informed that the performance is generally positive however they do not reflect the work the met police have carried out in relation to the Winter Crime Strategy so the performance statistics in the next quarter may have an impact.

A decrease in residential and commercial burglaries was reported however Matt Leng reminded the board that as we currently are in winter nights we may see in increase in these figures for the next quarter. Robbery of personal property has seen a slight spike in performance which relates to a specific crime group which has been targeted and dealt with which has resulted in several persecutions and incarcerations.

Inspector Zitver was invited to comment on the statistics presented in the report and noted the group robbery trend which has significantly reduced since action from police has been taken however work continues in the Finchley where the offences were taking place. Some of the work in this area includes enhanced weapon sweeps and additional patrols.

The Board noted the Q3 2021/22 Performance Update as set out in the report and above.

The Board received an update from Tina McElligott for quarter 3, specifically highlighting:

·         Supporting Families Programme (formerly Troubled Families Programme)

·         Youth Justice Service

·         Violence and Vulnerability Action Plan

·         Domestic Abuse and Violence against Women and Girls

Tina McElligott informed the Board that there will be an inspection of the service taking place on the week commencing 14^th February. The team have not been inspected since June 2014 where two recommendations came from it and the Youth Justice Plan will also be included in this.

The Chairman asked if the team are prepared for the upcoming inspection and if two weeks is sufficient to complete the report after the follow up. Tina McElligott commented that the team have had a long lead in time to the inspection and have had 7 weeks to prepare for it and the team are ready and that two weeks is sufficient as the team will only need to write up the action plan post inspection.

The Chairman asked what number had received custodial interventions.  Tina McElligott advised that 15 young people over the year received custodial interventions.

Judi Dumont- Barter asked if this work is representative in the data supplied in terms of needs of the young people and how many are currently asylum seekers. Tina McElligott confirmed that none of these are at the higher rate of offending and the team would need to drill into the data to see who is an unaccompanied asylum seeker is as there currently is no trend in data to show this.

Chris Kelly presented the Barnet Local Violence and Vulnerability Action Plan which is submitted to the violence reduction unit setting out a public health approach and how we are reducing violence. The plan has been through a substantial review with partners and brings together key actions derived from partnership working.

Tamara Djuretic welcomed the strategy and asked what other resources sit behind the strategy to deliver this and if any further investment is needed to deliver it. Chris Kelly commented that work within the plan is already funded via bids or business as usual activity so is not reliant on additional funding elsewhere.

The Board approved the Barnet Local Violence and Vulnerability Action Plan.

Karen Lingwood took the Board through the draft strategy consultation which detailed the findings from the consultation following an extensive phase one of the works.

The Board approved the implementation of the refreshed VAWG strategy and thanked both Chris Kelly and Karen Lingwood for their efforts.

Inspector Justin Zitver provided a verbal update on the North West Borough Command Unit (BCU). He reported that there has been an increase in town centre team patrolling, notably in Wembley and Harlsden. There is a recent burglary hotspot within the Colindale ward and criminals are targeting residential properties between the hours of 2-7pm however additional police patrols have been sent out.  There is also work being carried out in Burnt Oak and Colindale which link to more violent with injury and Problem Orientated Policing (POP) is taking place in these areas.

Streetsafe was discussed at the previous board and 4 wards where work will be carried out are Childs Hill, Garden Suburb, Finchley Church End and East Finchley and will run until March 2022.  Inspector Zitver also informed that the 3 wards within Barnet that have not had any recent issues include Totteridge, Hale and Golders Green.  Some of the work that has been carried out in these boroughs so far are weapon sweeps, late night patrols, walkabouts with ward Councillors. Positive Activity Initiatives are also taking place taking place with volunteers in the borough to ask how they feel about the areas they live in. This will be a 3-week initiative with 3 activities per week to begin with and more of these will be organised going forward. Initial areas to be targeted are Finchley and Golders Green.

The Chairman made reference to street furniture and Inspector Zitver advised that the team have a designated officer looking at longer term work in areas where people loiter which is currently a work in progress. Matt Leng confirmed that the Met Police and other Councils have been carrying out POP work to target areas of crime for many years and advocate for the removal of things such as phone boxes where they add no value to the area and potentially cause the public space to be misused.  Declan Khan then informed the Board that he is currently increasing the size of the Community Safety team whereby longer patrols will be covered with a view to move to ward-based coverage going forward.

Tamara Djuretic asked if there was a single point of contact for members of the public to report any issues. Inspector Zitver advised that the local teams can be contacted with all details to be found on the Met Police website. If a crime is to be reported the public should continue to use 101 for a non emergency or 999 in an emergency. 

Tina McElligott asked if there is a potential link between the POP and the Safer Schools teams given all the issues with young people we are seeing. Inspector Zitver confirmed that his team works regularly with the Safer Schools teams however the wider issues have not been generated by school activity so far in the two particular areas highlighted.

The Board noted the North West BCU update as set out above.

KoreenLogie updated the Board on the reunification and advised that much more work on blended caseloads has been noted and staff training has taken place over the past 6 weeks to enable the teams to carry out casework more effectively. There are a number of staff vacancies which are vacant, particularly in the YOS which is causing some delays in transitioning cases. She updated on the YOS transition programme via secondees in the Youth Offending Programme which is now called Next Steps Programme which is being launched and took the Board through the needs assessment and highlighted some of the key issues in the report based on internal data. 

Judi Dumont- Barter asked about thinking and behaviours in young offenders that have identification autism in older people and if there is any evidence or data of this. She also asked in relation to work carried out with thew NCL surrounding young black men and mental health and asked how the probation service is linked into this work. Koreen Logie noted that the joined up working with health colleagues focusing on high risk, high need individuals is working well and is well funded with lots of additional support however it is the tier that sits underneath the high risk cases that needs more attention and would welcome joint working with health colleagues for this cohort of individuals.  In relation to autism in offenders there is no definitive data to show this however it does come to attention of staff dealing with people who are on probation and she informed that training has taken place with Barnet Mencap on training and awareness on autism and learning difficulties. 

Tina McElligott informed the Board that her team had been successful in bidding for funding from the London Crime Prevention Fund and Richard Norfolk took the Board through some of the ideas the team would be proposing to carry out with the funding. There would also be an opportunity to work with the Probation Service and Koreen Logie welcomed this suggestion.

ACTION: Richard Norfolk

Kathleen Hill and Steven Odeyemi from the Probation Service updated the Board on the work that is taking place within the borough and commented that currently there are 4 projects that are run weekly totalling 7 sessions with a capacity of 68 hours which is moving in the right direction in terms of pre covid hours and the data reflects this increase. Currently delivering approx 67% compliance in Barnet however agreed that this needs to improve and a plan is in place to ensure this is raised. The teams will continue to increase project capacity with heightened awareness on health and safety and will move to approximately teams of 8-10 persons working on projects. ‘Project in a box’ projects will also increase for those service users who are able to work more independently on specific tasks enabling them to work at home, giving the service more diversity overall.

Steven Odeyemi took the Board through the projects taking place in various spots in the borough via a presentation highlighting that the focus is on more meaningful work for service users to enable engagement on a wider scale to stabilise their futures.

The Chairman asked if the service users are from the Borough of Barnet and what tasks were being carried out on the Grange and St Agnes School. Steven Odeyemi reported that most are from Barnet but there are a small minority of service users from neighbouring boroughs or further afield however placing people on projects is based around risk management depending on who these individuals are. Work taking place at both St Agnes and on the Grange Estate is gardening and site maintenance however this is under review. 

Judi Dumont-Barter asked if there is enough funding for this and if the team had considered making a bid for the Barnet Innovation fund. Kathleen Hill informed that the labour is supplied by the service users and that her team do not pay for the work to be carried out, the funding comes from the beneficiaries themselves.

Richard Norfolk commented that he is a big supporter of this scheme and commented on the fantastic opportunities for people to get involved, building positivity in people’s lives especially those who are under the lower end of crime but who have complex needs. He raised the subject of the tasking process and how members of the public would be made aware of this. Steven Odeyemi commented that he would supply the Chairman with this information

ACTION:Steven Odeyemi

Richard Norfolk noted that 30% of the sentence can be used for education and training opportunity and needs to be meaningful there is still some work Barnet Council can do to assist more with this. The Chairman suggested Richard Norfolk to liaise with Probation Service colleagues to take this forward and report back at a future board meeting.

ACTION:Richard Norfolk

The Board noted the probation service update as set out in the presentation and as detailed as above.

Reshma Hirani was not present at the meeting, and it was therefore suggested to take a note of any questions that arise in relation to the above item. Attendees at the meeting were therefore invited to submit questions within a 4 week period to the Chairman and the clerk in preparation for these to be responded to at the next board.

Greg Terefenko, Head of Housing at Barnet Homes provided an update on their services including informing the Board that the team have undertaken a holistic review of the Anti-Social Behaviour service following feedback with partners and residents and advised that at the first point of contact residents needs are not being met at the first point of contact. Training has been completed for contact centre staff to understand what is required when a call of this nature is received and the best way to resolve the issue and give the resident an understanding of expectations of officers and residents themselves to work collectively together. 

A triage service has been created via the contact centre where an upskilled team will assess any reports that come through and will send these to the specialist anti-social behaviour team who will make contact with the customer within 48 hours. Continual contact will take place every two weeks to ensure the customer is kept up to date with the progress of the case initially reported and the Barnet Homes website has been updated to reflect the new approach to tackling Anti-social behaviour and lists what constitutes as Anti-Social behaviour for the benefit of residents.

Performance is continuing to remain strong however there are still challenges with staff themselves reporting Anti-Social behaviour and the year-to-date figure of ASB cases is 76 with approximately 5 cases a month being reported which reflects vast under reporting and it will be the job of teams going forward will be to focus on building engagement with customers in tackling this. Certain estates, namely in Colindale is a distinct lack of under reporting.

Engagement programmes have taken place, namely Urban Gamez and other targeted community engagement events to reach out to customers to try to determine the reluctance to report ASB and feedback so far has shown that there is a lack on confidence in Barnet Homes resolving these issues. The team continue to work with the Police, CAFT and other partners to increase presence on estates and patrols have been prioritised to 7 days now on certain estates.

Barnet Homes also to continue to engage with the domestic violence one stop shop where there were 1287 approaches for the year 2020/21, the sanctuary scheme where there is £40,000 worth of security measures and 393 referrals. Minerva House is also available for those fleeing domestic violence and 24 women and 22 children benefitted from this support in 2020/21.

A specific neighbourhood plan has also been created for the Grahame Park Estate which will help work with customers to highlight key points of concern and to show that Barnet Homes is serious about listening to them and tackling issues on the estate such as ASB and drugs and the resident board which was recently formed will be fed back to on a regular basis.

The Board noted the Barnet Homes update as set out in the presentation and details above.

Noted.

None.

The next meeting was confirmed as the 27 April 2022.