Agenda item

The Chairman introduced the officers’ report which outlined the community safety governance review, and outlined where responsibility for community safety sat across different governance bodies including Environment Committee, Safer Communities Partnership Board (SCPB) and the Community Leadership & Libraries Committee (CLLC).  

The Head of Governance, Andrew Charlwood, reported that the other aim of the report was to provide an update on recent internal changes around where community safety functions sat in different directorates. In November 2019 community safety functions had moved from Environment Directorate to the Assurance Directorate for an interim period. Following a review, some services had remained in Assurance and others had transferred to Family Services as follows:

Assurance:

• Responsibilities as outlined the Community Safety Accreditation scheme of Powers including:
• Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnership
• Environmental Crime
• Anti-Social Behaviour (ASB)
• Prevent Agenda (including Hate Crime)
• CCTV
• Covid -19 Enforcement

New areas of responsibility in Family Services:

• Domestic violence (DV)

• Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG);
• Reduced Offending (RO)
• Integrated Offender Management (IOM)
• Violence, Vulnerability & Exploitation (VVE)

Mr Charlwood noted that Declan Khan, Head of Counter Fraud Operations would work closely with Tina McElligot, Director, Children’s Social Care on functions that cut across the two directorates.  

Mr Charlwood reported that Barnet’s governance arrangements in relation to community safety had been reviewed to ensure that these were in line with best practice and the legal framework, and to help clarify the roles and responsibilities of the boards and committees in relation to community safety to minimise cross-over and duplication.  The CLLC has a role to undertake crime and disorder scrutiny. It was noted that although this had been carried out annually via an annual report on community safety, it had not been made explicit in the Constitution until the recent changes had been made. The legal framework around the community safety partnership had also been reviewed, and some benchmarking against other Councils carried out, which had demonstrated that the SCPB was consistent with other similar sized local authorities in its make-up and operation. 

Mr Charlwood added that the Terms of Reference (ToRs) of the SCPB, CLLC and Environment Committee had been reviewed, and actions agreed as detailed in Appendix A had been progressed. Section 1.4 of the report had set out the updates to the ToRs to provide greater clarity on which aspects of community safety sit with which governance body. 

A Member asked where ‘youth crime’ sits. The Director of Assurance, Clair Green reported that youth crime remains within Family Services.

A Member stated that it is unfortunate that the Opposition Spokesperson for Community Safety only received the papers for the SCPB and was not a member of the Board. The Chairman noted that CLLC could not decide on this matter.

A Member reported that there had recently been an extreme level of incidents of anti-Semitism in Barnet, and she asked who to approach in the Council. Mr Khan responded that the Community Safety Team (CST) should be contacted but the police must also first be the first point of contact as this was a police matter. Barnet runs the Prevent Programme and the CST carries out hate crime analysis, but liaises closely with the police.

A Member asked about reporting incidents of anti-social behaviour (ASB). Mr Khan noted that ASB sits within CST. In the ToR this sits under the broad umbrella of ‘community safety’. 

A Member enquired what definition of environmental crime sits with CLLC. Mr Khan responded environmental crime is anything that is detrimental to the environment, and covers a broad spectrum of offences. It is tackled through Regulatory Services, Environmental Health and also the Environment Agency had some responsibilities. The CST could be contacted as first point of call, and would then refer on as appropriate.

RESOLVED that the Committee:

1.    Note the distribution of Community Safety functions across the Council; and

2.    Note and provide comments on the Community Safety Governance Review (Appendix A).