Agenda item

To receive the report of the head of legal and democratic services.

In attendance to present this item and to answer questions from the Scrutiny Committee were:

·           Councillor Eric Batts, Cabinet member Vale of White Horse

·           Councillor Anna Badcock, Chair of the South and Vale Community Safety Partnership (CSP) and Cabinet member South Oxfordshire

·           Superintendent Rory Freeman, Local Police Area Commander, South and Vale

·           Liz Hayden, Legal Licensing and Community Safety Manager

·           Karen Brown, Community Safety Team Leader

Liz Hayden introduced the report on behalf of the South and Vale Community Safety Partnership.

The report had two recommendations:

Recommendation One -  To note the progress that the South and Vale CSP has made so far in 2016-17 in delivering its priorities and statutory functions.

Statutory duties include:

a)     the need to develop and publish an annual  plan

b)     functions relating to anti-social behaviour

c)     duties to protect vulnerable people, This includes:

·         a Prevent action plan in accordance with section 26 of the Counter Terrorism and Security Act 2015 which places a duty on local authorities to have due regard to the need to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism;

·         raising awareness of and reporting to the Secretary of State any person identified as a victim of Modern Day Slavery; 

·         carrying out a Domestic Homicide Review when a homicide takes place in either district and the victim and offender were in a relationship.

The added value work of the Partnership includes:

a)     funding an outreach service for victims of domestic abuse and paying to help secure victims’ homes;

b)     joint agency tasking meetings (JATAC) have been combined with police tasking.  The aim being to maximise partnership working and make best use of resources;

c)     funding community based projects that aim to improve resilience for example projects that divert young people away from committing anti-social behaviour and/or becoming victims of crime.

Recommendation Two - To support the CSP’s view that the 2017-18 plan will focus on the protection of vulnerable people, prevention and early intervention, reducing re-offending and serious organised crime and terrorism. 

The committee then discussed the report with the panel. The following is a summary of the main topics raised.

The committee was interested in the funding arrangements for the Partnership and how it best managed its funding challenges to enable it to carry out its functions.

·           The Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) provides annual funding via Oxfordshire County Council to allow the partnerships to deliver on a local level.

·           The Partnership would like to work with charities in partnership arrangements for longer term projects.

·           The Partnership is working across the county and sharing resources on some issues, for example Prevent and domestic abuse services.

·           The PCC funding has reduced year on year and, therefore, the Partnership is working in collaboration with other bodies to work smarter, for example in commissioning groups. As a third party funder it can be effective in opening the doors to other funding and group working.

·           The community safety officers are all mainstream funded by the districts and this represents a significant contribution and commitment to the Partnership.

The committee asked a range of questions about the focus of the Partnership and its areas of work and how it identified who to work with and in what way.

·           Over the last ten years there have been changes to the main focus of crime: it had been focussed on vehicle crime, but is now more focussed around vulnerable people.

·           The Partnership funds projects in secondary schools that work with vulnerable young people. Young people are referred to projects by schools, direct street work in areas of need, and from early intervention hubs. The purpose of interventions is to assist young people in learning to make the right choices in their behaviours and aiming to improve their resilience to exploitation.

·           Hate crimes. After reviewing the project, the Partnership is working with SOHA to develop a third party reporting centre during 2017-18. This approach would help to keep the Champions and the victims safe.

·           The police have changed their crime recording standards and are recording far more crime, which explains some of the increases in crime statistics this year.

The committee was keen to express its gratitude at the work done by the Community Safety Partnership in a variety of areas.

Resolved

To commend the work of the Community Safety Partnership, to note its progress in delivering its priorities and statutory functions and to support their focus for 2017/18.

Action points for officers for the next report

·           To set specific and measurable targets for the next year.

·           To specify the numbers of gold, silver and bronze Nightsafe awards.

·           Other specific localised questions raised by members of the committee would be addressed through the action log.