Agenda item

Cllr Conway offered her congratulations to the Youth Justice Services team as being rated good at their most recent inspection. 

Cllr Conway also noted that the new administration had inherited the strategy on VAWG (Violence Against Women and Girls) which will run alongside the Community Safety places and spaces focus pledges and will be picked up in the action plan.

Tina McElligott, Director for Children’s Social care provided the Committee with an update on three key areas of Family Services deliver that cross over into community safety of which are:

·         Domestic Abuse & Violence Against Women and Girls

·         Youth Offending & Reducing Re-offending

·         Child Exploitation, Serious Youth & Adult Violence

She noted that the team are now working closely with the new administration to ensure the team focuses on their priorities and these will become embedded into the action plan going forward.

Cllr Radford asked about the safety walks that are taking place and noted that many of his residents are keen to join. He also asked how residents can report an issue about a particular area of public space before these walks take place, whether it be poor lighting or Anti-social behaviour taking place. Ms McElligott commented that when we invited residents to tell us about areas they didn’t feel safe in it did not generate a lot of response on this matter despite their being a dedicated mailbox for this however we do know through some of the consultations carried out through the development of the Domestic Abuse & VAWG strategy that some women did tell us about some parts of the borough where they did not feel safe. Ms McElligott also confirmed that the safety walkabouts are organised through the Police.

Cllr Sargeant thanked Ms McElligott for the comprehensive report and asked if the team are able to look at the reports of violence against Farsi and Kurdish speaking women and if this can this be explored further to understand the data on this. Ms McElligott noted that this is user reported data and we rely on the individuals to report it. She continued that we do have a large Iranian community living in Barnet and many of these are Farsi speaking women reporting domestic abuse. Reach, an Iranian women’s group are assisting with this and those women who don’t speak a second language.

Cllr Rose commented that she was surprised to see no LGBTQ+ reported incidents and asked that if training from organisations such as GALLOP and Jewish Women’s Aid might help those to speak up. Ms McElligott informed that she would be happy to reach out to these groups to ensure safety for everyone to ensure services are accessible to everybody.

ACTION: MS MCELLIGOTT

Ms McElligott noted the domestic abuse activity and highlighted that the team are delivering against the strategy that was launched back in March to help tackle the root causes in relation to violence against women. She continued that the team have been fortunate enough to have secured additional funding to support the refuges and Barnet homes and have successfully bid and been awarded funding for a specialist domestic abuse team via the home office.

Ms McElligott continued that a visit would be taking place this Thursday from the Deputy Mayor of London who wants to come and have a look at the MOPAC funded perpetrator programme which is being delivered in partnership with Enfield and Brent to see how it is being delivered and what we are learning from it.

Ms McElligott informed that the team are also seeing an increase in numbers of young people who are committing abuse against their parents and as part of the work commissioned through our partners, they are delivering a young person’s perpetrator programme which young people are being referred to. Nonviolence resistant intervention is being used which enables parents to better manage their children’s behaviour and gives young people better coping mechanisms and the team will continue to monitor the progress of this.

Cllr L Gurung asked if the team have any records of domestic violence against men. Ms McElligott informed that sadly, two of the 4 domestic homicide deaths within the borough were men in the 12 months up util the end of April 2022. 

Cllr Radford asked about forecasting demand for housing for those who are fleeing domestic abuse. Ms McElligott advised that it would be difficult to forecast as it is a demand led service and not all victims want to stay in the local area.

Cllr Sargeant asked if the team have been able to meet the increased demand on the service since lockdown. Ms McElligott informed that the services that are commissioned are busy and have high volumes of referrals but currently there is sufficient capacity within the teams.

Ms McElligott reiterated that the Youth Justice Service had a successful inspection which graded the services as good. The action plan which included the areas that needed some areas of development has now been signed off and progress will be monitored through the Youth Justice Matters Board and progress will be reported via this Committee.

Ms McElligott informed that she had given a snapshot of those who are involved in the Youth Justice System out of the 100,000 young people in the borough and reiterated that the hard work due to all the partnership working has resulted in low numbers of those accessing the service however there is an over representation of young black men in the service and in exclusions from schools therefore the Youth Justice Matters Board is looking at this as this is what leads to more exploitation and crime.

Cllr Conway asked when this work is likely to conclude and if it will come back to this Committee for reporting. Ms McElligott commented that this is currently being monitored through the board and a school exclusions group has been set up by Barnet Education Learning Service (BELS) who are leading on this piece of work.

Cllr Radford asked about young black boys being at particular risk and asked how we can design our services to combat this and unpick the reasons as to why they are more at risk. Ms McElligott advised there is significant evidence of adultification of young black boys and therefore adults treat them differently as well as their behaviour is seen to be more aggressive which all adds up to this racial disparity. Ms McElligott advised that we need to ensure we have a well-educated education system and understand what drives this behaviour and work with schools to eliminate exclusions and manage behaviour.

Ms McElligott informed the Committee of the restorative conferences that the team have started to use which give the victim the opportunity to have a conversation with the person that committed the crime which should create some healing for both parties. These have been very successful to date and the team are developing more of these and through the London Crime Prevention funding we have been able to recruit a Restorative Crime Coordinator to take this out to schools and the community to raise awareness and make the role more sustainable. Cllr Narenthira commented that she supports this idea of victims meeting the perpetrator however in some cases this may not be a good idea depending on what happened to the victim.

Cllr Stock asked in relation to crime hotspots and if the team will be able to use the mobile CCTV units, especially around schools. Ms McElligott commented that the Police should be picking up some of this however the Reducing & Reinventing Board will pick the schools issues up. Hotspots have been identified; several agencies are involved in the problem areas. Mr Khan highlighted that some of the hotspots are stations or non Council land so when it comes to CCTV this will be already in place by the land owner.

Cllr Stock asked in relation to the camera being place in Totteridge and asked if this will be a Council manned camera. Mr Khan informed that this specific camera which is an Automatic Number Plate Recognition camera (ANPR) is run by the Police and they have access to the data on this.

RESOLVED that:

The Communities, Leadership and Libraries Committee noted and comment on the progress being made to reduce offending, violence, and exploitation, including Domestic Abuse and Violence Against Women & Girls.