Babergh and Mid Suffolk District Councils
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Agenda item

Members are asked to review the activity of the Western Suffolk Community Safety Partnership.

Minutes:

 

45.1            The Chair welcomed the attending Members of the Western Suffolk Community Safety Partnership (WSCSO) and invited the Chair WSCSP, Councillor Spicer to make an introduction to Members.

 

45.2            Councillor Spicer outlined her role in the WSCSP and that she was one of two Suffolk County Council representatives, the other being Councillor Jack Owen. The Partnership was not just a statutory partnership but worked on what was relevant for the area. The strength of the Partnership was that partners were involved from across a wide area. 

 

45.3            There were some challenges for Babergh and Mid Suffolk, as the policing boundaries did not match the area of the two Districts, and substantial parts of Babergh were within what people perceived as Ipswich.  However, the future of community safety relied on working together in the partnership and she thanked the Councils’ representatives Councillors Mansel and Davis for their contributions.

 

45.4            She explained that the term ‘Criminal Exploitation’ was a new umbrella term covering gangs and county lines. She continued that national data showed that violence against women and girls had increased considerably during the Covid-19 lockdown and that the Partnership was supporting the victims and ensuring that refuges were provided to those fleeing violence. Domestic Homicide Review (DHR) was part of the WSCSP statutory duty and the DHR panel reviews all cases and progresses any actions from these reviews. She outlined the work undertaken for Hate Crime and Prevent and that much of the work was focused on awareness amongst the public and specifically young persons. The feedback received from schools and colleges indicated that it was working well.  She ended her introduction by adding that modern day slavery, which was not included in the paper, needed to be looked at in its entirety and that the police had set up a team to address the issues nationally.

 

45.5            The Chair invited the Corporate Manager for Communities, Vicky Mosley to introduce Paper JOS/20/17.

 

45.6            The Corporate Manager – Communities provided an update on the work of the WSCSP during the past year and the challenges facing community safety during the Covid-19 pandemic. She listed the five priority areas of focus and explained that the performance was tracked using a three-year action plan, broken down into five themes: awareness, communication, training and education, projects and community resilience. She then detailed how each area was addressed and how projects were progressing despite the lockdowns and the restrictions imposed on the services due to Covid-19.

 

45.7            Councillor Davis, the Babergh representative on WSCSP, outlined further the work undertaken by the Partnership’s action plan for the top priority areas, and that strategies such as Violence Against Women and Girls, Men and Boys had enabled the development of programmes for officers and Members on topics such as criminal exploitation, disrupting exploitation, hate crime training and domestic abuse training. Other areas included the development of an anti-social behaviour (ASB) plan and the way these were dealt with including access to information on the website and the way ASB cases were processed.

 

45.8            Councillor Mansel, the Mid Suffolk representative on WSCSP, focussed on the development action plans in respect of Violence against Women and Girls, Men and Boys. Partners across the County had been working on raising awareness of sexual abuse including social media campaigns. Mid Suffolk had funded two PCSOs for the past two years and they had engaged with the community at approximately 137 venues up until February last year, including schools and community centres. PSCOs had engaged with students across the District and had visited 44 schools. In February 2021 the PCSOs had visited Chinese communities to reassure them of their safety in the light of the Covid-19 Pandemic. From the March 2020 to February 2021 the PCSOs had to reduce their engagement activities due to Covid-19 restrictions.

 

45.9            Councillor Gould asked why there was not representation for youth offenders on the WSCSP and how the Partnership supported hard to reach victims, especially in rural areas. Councillor Spicer confirmed that representatives for organisation which deal with youth offenders were part of the Partnership and that any organisation, who could make a difference to community safety could the join the Partnership.

 

45.10         Suffolk County Council Specialist Lead - Public Health, Clair Harvey explained that WSCSP Partnership held regular conversations across neighbouring Counties. Nationally there had been indications of an increase of 25% of hard-to-reach residents due to the Pandemic and the policies for self-isolation. However, that had not been the case in this Partnership, though she added a caveat that it might be that the Partnerships were not yet aware of these.  The Partnership had set up a Task and Finish group for a project on how to reach out to the groups that were known, but she recognised that there may be unknown hidden groups, not yet identified.

 

45.11         Councillor Grandon commented that previously the County had suffered from County Line crimes and asked whether this had reduced during the Pandemic and whether gangs had found other means of selling drugs in the area.

 

45.12         The SCC Specialist Lead responded that there had been a reduction of County Lines, possibly because of drugs being distributed in different ways. Suffolk Constabulary had worked with the Metropolitan Police to tackle criminal exploitation and additional funding had aided this work.

 

45.13         Councillor McLaren referred to the issues with the accommodation at Stella Maris in Sproughton and how this was being addressed.

 

45.14         The Corporate Manager – Communities responded that an action plan had been implemented and was initially working well. She outlined the work undertaken by Officers to ensure that processes were streamlined, and that officers and partners received training and worked together to resolve the issues there.  

 

45.15         Councillor McLaren asked that all Members were made aware of the progress and how the Council was responding to the issues.

 

45.16         The Strategic Director, Kathy Nixon, advised Members that they would be invited to receive further development and training, as a result of the lesson learned from Stella Maris and that these lessons were being used across the County to provide better mitigation of such issues. 

 

45.17         Councillor McCraw queried how the work undertaken for ASB by the Council could be translated into action in the communities and the Corporate Manager – Communities detailed the community engagement process implemented by the Housing and the Community teams. Processes were being reviewed, including community triggers and how cases of ASB were reported to the Council to make the reporting easier for residents. 

 

45.18         She added as a response to Councillor McCraw’s comments regarding gathering in larger groups during lock-down that the work did not specifically focus on the Pandemic, but that the current situation was a good time to consider new processes.

 

45.19         Councillor Ekpenyong referred to drug related activities and the successful interventions in Stowmarket, and how engagement, information and training was conducted in schools.

 

45.20         The SCC Specialist Lead responded that comprehensive work had been undertaken in schools already and that new training and information packages were ready to be rolled out once restrictions had been lifted. Feedback from engagement with teachers, pupils and parents had indicated this had been successful. Information packages were available online free of charge.

 

45.21         Councillor Dawson questioned the report and that there was not any analytical, evaluation assessments or appraisal included to enable Members to assess targets and developments.

 

45.22         The SCC Specialist Lead responded that the WSCSP had an action plan and that statistics had to be submitted to the Home Office on a regular basis. Councillor Spicer added that partners held each other to account for actions in the agreed Action Plan.

 

45.23         In an additional response to Councillor Dawson’s questions, Councillor McCraw informed Members that the report was truncated this year and was not a full review of the WSCSP.  Due to the pressure on resources as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic and that many services were still in emergency response mode, the Chairs of the Overview and Scrutiny Committees had agreed that the Committee could conduct a review of the activities of the WSCSP rather than a full review.

 

45.24         In response to Councillor McCraw’s concern regarding ASB and that he felt that this it was not a high priority at the moment, the Strategic Director reiterated that ASB cases were a high priority in both Babergh and Mid Suffolk Districts and that the Councils work to ensure that the work on the ground was done well. This was one of the strengths of the Partnership.

 

45.25         The Superintendent for Suffolk Constabulary, Janine Wratten, then introduced herself to Members and informed them that she was the Lead Officer for ASB for the whole police force in Suffolk and was going to undertake a review of the work of the agency partners.

 

45.26         Jane Reason, Albany Pupil Referral Unit provided an outline of the work she undertook, and that the Unit was working well with parents and that before the Pandemic Lockdown restrictions, engagement meetings had been well attended.  There had been a reduction in cases involving County Lines and a significant reduction in drug selling during the Covid-19 Pandemic period. 

 

45.27         The Chair invited questions from Members and Councillor Caston queried what indicators there were for a reduction in County Lines activities and what monitoring processes were in place to provide data for these activities.

 

45.28         The SCC Specialist Lead responded that indicators for County Lines signalled a reduction in area, and that drug related services had seen a slight reduction. Superintendent Wratten added that drug use data was by nature not reliable data and only cases which were registered could be included in the data sets. However, the figures did indicate a decrease in drug offences.

 

45.29         In further responses to Members questions, the SCC Specialist Lead and Superintendent Wratten could not yet confirm that there had been an increase in Parent/Carer violence. Whilst they were not aware that County Lines had recruited more children and young persons as drug couriers, no data existed yet. However, the lockdown had made it more difficult for drug couriers to use public transport for distribution lines. Black spots for drug selling were known to the police in the County and the police had undertaken background work to stop this activity coming back after the lockdown.

 

45.30         Members returned to questions regarding ASB and Councillor Adrian Osborne asked Councillor Davis for an update on ASB in Sudbury as this was the biggest concern for many residents there; especially the elderly, who felt not enough was being done to deal with ASB issues in their neighbourhoods.

 

45.31         Councillor Davis advised that a new ASB Officer had been working with the Corporate Manager – Communities and that more information would be made available to Members, as data was compiled and analysed. The Corporate Manager reiterated this and reassured Members that once processes had been approved and put in place, more high-level generic data would be forwarded to all Members.

 

Note: the meeting was adjourned between 10:50 am and 11:00 am.

 

45.32         Members continued with further questions and Councillors Welham and McCraw queried data for violence and domestic abuse figures for Women and Girls, Men and Boys, as the solve rate was not particularly good in Suffolk for these crimes. They both asked what could be done to reduce these forms of crime

 

45.33         The SCC Specialist Lead replied that a campaign had been implemented last year for domestic abuse training for recognising and reporting this crime to embed people in all organisations to help victims.  Last year 358 persons had been trained across the County.  The WSCSP could support this by getting the message out to the wider communities and make residents aware of the 24/7 helpline and the support available for victims. 

 

45.34         Councillor Welham asked how accommodation was provided for victims of domestic violence against Men and Boys, as there was not a lot of accommodation available for this specific crime generally and the SCC Specialist Lead responded that even if domestic abuse victims did not usually seek refuge within the County, it was still important to provide refuge and satellite accommodation for victims. Recently an extra 19 spaces and had been added on top of the current spaces. Further funding would be forwarded from Central Government in due course. 

 

45.35         Members debated the issues including that the Member handbook produced a couple of years ago should be updated and redistributed to all Members.

 

45.36         Councillor McLaren thought that the report did not contain enough detail, and the Assistant Director – Sustainable Communities provided Members with a breakdown of the domestic abuse cases in refuge accommodation and sheltered accommodation.

 

45.37         The Chair explained to Members that the data had not been included in the report as officers had been redeployed to Covid-19 duties and that the Chairs of the Overview and Scrutiny Committees had asked to bring the report to Committee now rather than later in the year. Next year’s report should include more data.

 

45.38         Councillor Dawson asked that it be noted that there was not enough analysis, assessments and appraisal of the activities for the WSCSP included in the report.

 

45.39         Councillor Ekpenyong suggested that ASB be scrutinised in the future and that each of the priority areas could be scrutinised in turn.

 

45.40         Councillor McCraw stated that it was the Councils’ statutory duty to review the WSCSP every year, and not to duplicate their work.  The Councils had their own representatives on the WSCSP, who contributed to the work of the Partnership on behalf of the Councils.

 

45.41         A discussion ensued regarding the Councils’ representatives reporting back to Members on the work of the WSCSP and the Corporate Manager – Communities assured Members that updates would be brought back to Members in due course.

 

45.42         Members considered the recommendations and agreed that the content of the report should be noted, however that an updated version of the confidential WSCSP Member handbook should be distributed to all Members, in addition Members should be briefed on the procedures and processes of ASB.

 

45.43         Further consideration focused on the WSCSP report for next year and Members asked for more detail and data to be included.  Some Members were concerned that there was not enough analysis, assessments and evaluation of the work of the WSCSP, and others felt that this was not the purpose of the Committee and that an evaluation of the effectiveness of the activities of the WSCSP would add more value.

 

By a unanimous vote

 

It was RESOLVED:-

 

That the Joint Overview and Scrutiny Committee, having reviewed the activity of the WSCSP and noted the content of the officer’s report, have the following observations:

 

That the previously prepared Confidential Member WSCSP information pack be prepared, updated and additional information added and distributed to all Members;

 

That arrangements be made for a briefing for Members of the Councils on the procedures, processes and the action plan in respect of Anti-Social Behaviour;

 

That the next annual review of the WSCSP to include an evaluation of the effectiveness of the activity of partnership.

 

 

Supporting documents: