Agenda and minutes

RESOLVED that the minutes of the meeting held on 4 November 2022 be agreed as a correct record.

Apologies were received from Greg Terefenko, Head of Housing, Barnet Homes, Tamara Djuretic, Director of Public Health and Peter Curtin, London Fire Brigade.  

None.

Matt Leng, Community Safety Manager gave an overview on performance up until November 2022 which included highlights:

·In the 3 months of September 2022 to November 2022 there were 523 cases of residential burglary in Barnet.

·the 3 months of September 2022 to November 2022 there were 177 cases of non residential burglary in Barnet

·In the 3 months of September 2022 to November 2022 there were 191 cases of robbery of personal property in Barnet

·In the 3 months of September 2022 to November 2022 there were 569 cases of violence with injury in Barnet

·In the 3 months of September 2022 to November 2022 there were 28 cases of knife crime with injury in Barnet

·From 24th October 2022- 29th November 2022 there were 383 incidents captured by CCTV in Barnet

The Safer Communities Partnership Board noted the contents of the presentation.

Tina McElligott, Director of Childrens Social Care presented the report and noted that it provided the board with an overview to the Safer Communities Partnership Board on three key areas of Family Services delivery that cross over into the Community Safety Strategy, which are:

• Domestic Abuse and Violence Against Women & Girls

• Violence, Vulnerability & Exploitation

• Reducing Re-Offending

Key highlights from the report were noted as:

Barnet’s rate of DA incidents is 12.1 per 1000 population (12 months up to the end of August 2022). Barnet has the 3rd lowest rate of reported DA incidents in London.

There were 728 Domestic Abuse Violence with Injury offences recorded by the police in Barnet in 12 months up to the end of December 2022 (a decrease of 1.9 % compared to the previous year). 69 suspects were identified and charged by police.

An assessment of the domestic abuse MARAC referrals over last quarter from October 2022 to December 2022 shows that:

• 31.1 % of victims in the cohort had a reported mental health need. There is currently good engagement however this can be improved

• 5.7 % victims had a reported alcohol misuse need.

• 5.7% had a reported illicit substance misuse need.

• 6.6% (n=8) referrals were for child-to-parent violence

• 6.6% of DA MARAC cases included a request for a Clare’s Law (Domestic Abuse Disclosure Scheme)

In Q3 a total of 33 multi-agency practitioners and managers attended domestic abuse & VAWG Training. Some additional funding has been agreed in December which will enable the domestic abuse consultant to continue and develop and implement the strategy. They will remain in post until the end of the strategy which is an extremely positive development for the service.

Family Services 0-19 Early Help Services deliver multi-agency Department for Work & Pensions (DWP) Reducing Parental Conflict (RPC) training which shares tools and interventions for direct work with children and families. The training explicitly identifies the escalation of parental conflict to domestic abuse and the need for safeguarding and support to be put in place and the team are now rolling-out a further three years of training with additional funding that has been received for continuation of the programme.

Family Services 0-19 Early Help Services delivered one Women’s AVA CODA Group in Q3. In total 15 parent victims (mothers) were invited to the sessions and 8 completed the full suite of sessions. Positive feedback was received from all the parents that attended the sessions and the parents have requested a monthly ‘Coffee Morning’ as a follow up each term.

Barnet Council has committed to working to end male violence against women by becoming White Ribbon (WR) Accredited on 11 April 2022. The WR steering group continues to meet monthly and implement the 3-year action plan.

Barnet Solace DA Advocacy and Support Service (SASS) received 248 referrals in Q3 2022/23 (this figure does not include Jewish Womens Aid data. This is still a high number of referrals, however is lower than the previous quarter reporting.

There  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

Cllr Conway noted the difficulties within the service currently and noted that the Police and the partnership Board continue to build trust, working with the teams and addressing local issues where possible.

CI Lynch updated the board on the clear areas of focus for the Police which includes more trust, less crime and more professionalism.  He noted that a number of actions have been taken already and have been adopted locally with the new commissioner already starting to develop a new command, Proactive operations that the commissioner and local police will be taking forward will restore confidence in the service and gives a commitment of the new commissioner’s approach to how seriously it is being taken. He continued that a lot of learning that will take place from the Baroness Casey review.

CI Lynch also informed that an audit of national police databases where every officer will be scrutinised as well as an internal appeal in terms of reporting corruption has been launched. Both CI Lynch and CI Zitver gave their underlying commitment on continuing to work closely together. 

Fiona Bateman made the suggestion of changing the focus and the risks and timelines to partnership working. CI Lynch noted that work has been carried out locally however the pressures that all partners face is recognised and that a small, local project team aligns with the local issues and a need for the teams internally to identify the learning from these incidents. Cllr Conway suggested a broader update at the next meeting and noted that ward councillors should know about this work.

Cllr Conway advised that the Fire Brigade sent apologies however any comments could be directed to the governance officer to collate to the team.

Fiona Bateman commented in relation to the report noting that the crucial point within the report is the home safety element and the need to make sure this is fully implemented especially the hospital discharge element.

The Safer Communities Partnership Board noted the London Fire Brigade report, including the Commissioners report.

Ray booth, Chief Executive of Barnet Mencap presented the report including the work that is being carried out and the implementation of the Autism Strategy and identifies some of the current gaps in being able to carry these out effectively.

Mr Booth informed partners on the Safer Communities Partnership Board of the main gaps in ensuring the strategy is fulfilled, some of which include data, engagement, autism card alerts which is a well-established mechanism for identifying autistic people however its use locally is unclear and it can be quite problematic, training and healthcare support with the main ambition of the strategy being the overall acceptance in society of those who are autistic, especially those in the youth criminal justice system.

Mr Booth also informed that it has been hard to obtain any data on the number of autistic young people and adults in contact with the CJS and that it is not clear what the police and the Diversion and Liaison Service is doing to increase the use of alternatives to prosecution and custody.

The Safer Communities Partnership Board noted the Autism and the criminal justice system report.

Reshma Hirani, Project Coordinator, Barnet Mencap gave the Board and update on the Hate crime project –and noted that it seeks to implement parts of the Councils hate crime strategy with 7 key areas attached to the strategy.

The key objectives outlined in the report are to continue to provide ongoing support to victims and achieve an increase community confidence and to safeguard the vulnerable people in the borough of Barnet.

The key objectives of the Zero Tolerance to Hate Crime Project are to implement parts of the Council’s Hate Crime Strategy and focus on:

·      Increasing reporting of: Disability Hate Crime; Racist and Religious Hate Crime; and Anti LGBT Hate Crime.

·      Providing ongoing support victims of hate crime and where appropriate referring them to other service providers and support organisations.

·      Increasing community confidence in reporting hate crime to the Police.

·      Improving cross-agency working to tackle hate.

·      Expanding the cohort of Hate Crime Reporting Centres to represent a diverse cross-section of the community and engage with harder-to-reach communities.

·      Safeguarding vulnerable adults and children from the impact of hate crime.

For the year 2021/22 there were a total of 905 hate crimes recorded in Barnet. This was an increase from 857 in 2020/21 of which can be broken down into the following:

·         Racist and Religious Hate Crime: 827

·         Disability Hate Crime: 23

·         Homophobic Hate Crime: 68

·         Transgender Identity Hate Crime: 13

The Hate Crime Reporting Co-Ordinator has delivered 6 Staff Training Workshops for 77 staff in 2022. Workshops include information on identifying and reporting hate crime so that frontline staff can support victims to report hate crime to the Police. This year will be more focused on financial abuse and scams/online fraud. Workshops have taken place with a number of organisations including:

• Barnet Federated GP Service
• Age UK
• Probation Services
• Victim Support
• Jewish Care
• Muswell Hill Medical Centre

Cllr Conway thanked Ms Hirani for all the work carried out on the strategy to date and would continue with safer spaces for women work in conjunction with the town centre teams where there is a natural link for community safety. She continued that this work links in with the Civic and Communities events paper that is going to the Communities, Leadership & Libraries Committee at the forthcoming meeting.

The Safer Communities Partnership Board noted the Hate Crime project – Annual Report.

The Safer Communities Partnership Board noted the update given by Louisa Songer who informed that the team have been currently reviewing the various arms of substance abuse which have been identified as breaking the supply chain, achieving a generational shift in the need for drugs and prevention and consequences to drug use along with delivering a world class delivery of recovery treatment. Since the last update the team have been working on the needs assessment to ensure all relevant data is reflected in this with a few gaps to still be explored with a more substantial update to come to the next meeting in April.

The Board discussed the Forward Plan programme and were urged to notify the relevant officer of any items they wished be included on the Forward Plan.

None.