Agenda item

The Chairman stated that the Q1 Performance Report had already been circulated and was for noting.

 

The Chairman welcomed the Community Safety Manager to the meeting.

 

The Community Safety Manager spoke to the Q2 Performance Report. He noted that strong performances had been achieved in hate crime awareness, including supporting victims to report hate crime. Barnet had worked with the Barnet Mencap Disability User Forum and Gypsy Roma Travellers. Barnet had also signed up 150 members of staff as Hate Crime Reporting Champions.

 

Five Public Space Protection Orders had been designated in Barnet; 4 focused on reducing alcohol-related crime, and one on antisocial behaviour in relation to dog walking. There was strong evidence of the impact of the PSPOs in Barnet, including a reduction of over 50% in calls to London Ambulance Service, which showed behaviour change in those areas.

 

A Member asked questions on the Q2 report:

 

·       Were the increased costs at Colindale and Church End Libraries due to rent, and were these costs offset?

 

Response:

 

Colleagues from the libraries team were not present so a response would be provided for the next meeting.

Action: Governance Officer

 

·       Previously there had been a Key Performance Indicator (KPI) around sanction and detection rates for violence against women and girls (VAWG) and this was still a delivery item in the Corporate Plan but was not in the report to CLLC. The KPI did not include ‘coercive control’ so how would all forms of VAWG be monitored?

 

Response:

 

The Community Safety Manager agreed that positive action should be taken at all opportunities where domestic violence was concerned. Domestic violence was monitored every quarter at the VAWG Subgroup of the Safer Communities Partnership Board - he would feed back the Member’s recommendations.

Action: Community Safety Manager

 

Cllr Richman arrived at this point in the meeting.

 

·       A huge improvement was evident in Burnt Oak but cuts in police numbers were a major concern; there was a need for policing the PSPOs during the evenings and at weekends for enforcement to happen.

 

Response:

 

The Chairman reported that he had attended a recent meeting of the Safer Neighbourhood Board – he suggested that this be addressed at Ward level with the Borough Command Unit (BCU) which should be able to deal with specific issues. If the Member did not receive a satisfactory response she could raise the matter again with the Chairman.

 

The Community Safety Manager noted that the police had taken action in 149 cases in the PSPO zones with six of these resulting in Criminal Behaviour Orders and three Notices issued. The Community Safety Team met regularly with partners and the police to review how effective the zones were.

 

·       The status for staff training in hate crime awareness was ‘red’ in the report – why was this?

 

Response:

 

The Community Safety Manager responded that the red/amber status was due to the training schedule over the year. This should improve in Q3 and Q4 as more staff are trained across the partnership.

 

·       Perhaps Barnet Council or BOOST could consider introducing an accreditation scheme for volunteers as individuals were volunteering for long periods of time, and this could help them find paid employment and provides recognition for their work.

 

Response:

 

The Deputy Head of Strategy stated that national accreditation schemes could be considered or Barnet could develop its own. He would look into this.

Action: Deputy Head of Strategy

 

·       Were there any issues with the new library and should partnership libraries be viewed differently to the main libraries?

 

Response:

 

The Chairman noted that libraries would be on the agenda for the meeting in March 2020 so there would be an opportunity to pose this question to officers then.

 

·       A Member referred to paragraph 8.3.1 ‘Availability of resources to the voluntary sector’ and ‘Working with the Voluntary Community Faith Sector (VCFS) and asked for clarification on whether this indicated that relationships with the VCFS were not effective in Barnet.

 

Response:

 

The Deputy Head of Strategy stated that not working in partnership would result in a risk that both the council and the voluntary sector would not achieve the outcomes that they both wanted. A lack of engagement would constitute a risk but there was no concern that currently partnerships were not working in a cohesive way. He would amend the wording around this in future reports.

Action: Deputy Head of Strategy

 

·       A Member asked how overall performance could be improved or whether it had already improved from ‘satisfactory’.

 

Response:

 

The Community Safety Manager reported that the aim was to improve the areas where needed in Q3 and Q4 by focusing more closely on these, and he felt confident that the Hate Crime Indicators would show improvement in the next report.

 

·       A Member asked how missed opportunities for early intervention could be reduced and whether cross-borough working was effective.

 

Response:

 

The Community Safety Manager reported that the team had been making steps to improve in this area and would focus more closely on it, particularly in relation to criminal and large-scale fly tipping but there were also many other issues that had scope for cross-borough working.

 

A Member noted that she did not know where the Hate Crime Awareness Reporting Centres were and were there details of the five new ones that were proposed? Would the team like input on these from Members?

 

The Community Safety Manager would circulate details on the reporting centres and partner organisations and added that the team would welcome the Member’s offer of help. He would circulate a briefing note on the next steps of the project and would ask for feedback from the Committee.

Action: Community Safety Manager

 

The Member congratulated the Community Safety Team and other agencies on their work. She had worked with the Community Safety Managers Peter Clifton and Matt Leng and other agencies.

 

·       A Member enquired about the KPIs on page 33 on ASB and whether actions were being taken to improve this.

 

Response:

 

The Community Safety Manager reported that 8,893 calls to the police in Barnet in the past 12 months had been ASB related. Barnet had the 8^th lowest rate of ASB in London out of 32 boroughs. The recent increase came after years of successive reduction so that rate still remained lower than it had been a few years ago. London overall had seen almost the exact same rise recently. The team had been actively encouraging people to report ASB using the 101 number. Monthly meetings of the Community Safety Multi Agency Risk Assessment Conference were ongoing which worked on the top repeat calls to the police and at least 5 of these had an action plan put in place at each meeting.

 

The Committee was asked to review the financial, performance and risk information for Q1 and Q2 2018/19 Performance Reports and make any referrals to Policy and Resources Committee or Financial Performance and Contracts Committee in accordance with the terms of reference of these Committees.

 

RESOLVED - the Q1 and Q2 Reports were noted with no referrals.