Agenda and minutes

To approve as correct the minutes of the meetings held on 1 March 2016 and authorise the Chairman to sign them.

The minutes of the meeting of the Sub-Committee held on 1 March 2016 were agreed and signed as a correct record.

To receive an oral report from the Borough Commander.

DCI Alan Moore attended on behalf of the Borough Commander and updated the Sub-Committee on current crime trends.

Burglary continued to be an issue with the Police targeting known offenders. The borough was a high risk target with good transport links and a travelling community. When the police investigate a burglary they visit neighbours on either side and possibly at the rear of the property to raise awareness of the risk. In a small community this could increase the fear of crime.

To tackle the problem across East London a crime squad has been established to address major issues. Local forces would be able to call for extra resources.

On the whole Havering did not have a major crime issue.

He had identified as a concern the amount of social housing being acquired by other local authorities to rehouse problem families, which could impact on the borough creating a greater gang presence. Officers advised that currently we had 35 gang members on the Trident register with a further 50/60 under observation due to gang associations.

DCI Moore advised that at present Havering was 32/33 PC’s over strength. The position with CID was not so good being 8.42 detectives under strength, 6 of whom were on long term absence. Of a total strength of 50 only 36 were available for tasking. To make the best use of resources priority was given to Domestic Abuse, Sex Offenders and Offender Management.

A member of the Sub-Committee sought clarification as to the alleged increase in hate crime since the Brexit vote.  The Sub-Committee were advised that in Havering:

·         Islamaphobia was down 1%

·         Race hate up by 41.3% (95 cases)

·         Racially and Religiously motivated crime up by 43.5% (103 cases).

Whilst these percentages seemed high it was pointed out this was relatively small numbers, less than 1 per day.

Across London reported Hate Crime had risen since Brexit.

Until MOPAC agreed their new targets we would be using the multi dashboard to provide statistics which concentrated on harm, risk and threats.

The Sub-Committee thanked DCI Moore for his presentation.

To receive an oral report from the National Probation Service.

Consideration of this item was deferred until the next meeting.

To consider the attached report which was submitted to the Havering Community Safety Partnership on 20 July 2016.

The Sub-Committee were informed that the Council had been successful in attracting £53,000 in additional funding from MOPAC to address repeat victimisation regarding scamming. The Council’s Community Safety Team manages the project but work closely with Trading Standards.

Since the beginning of the project thirty of the TrueCall secure boxes had been installed to filter and block certain phone calls. The TrueCall system blocks all calls except those from numbers programmed into the phone. When a box is installed a voice message is recorded advising callers to contact a family member if they need to talk to the home occupier/owner.

The phones will only be provided to those in greatest needs although a reduced cost for the system has been negotiated with TrueCall for any others who wish to buy the system.

A key driver for the project is to identify individual victims, identify trends in nuisance calls and to develop and implement a strategy to aid victims.

The Sub-Committee noted the report and asked officers to liaise with the council’s Social Isolation project.

Report attached.

The Sub-Committee have considered agreeing a work plan for the forthcoming year. A provisional plan, as set out below was adopted:

The Work Plan was a live document and subject to change.

Consideration was also given to the next Topic Group the Sub-Committee would like to pursue. Given the recent problem in the borough caused by travellers the Sub-Committee indicated that they would like to look at the Best Practice to manage the criminal impact of travellers on the local Community. The purpose would be to see how other authorities deal with the problem and look to develop a policy to deal with the different types of travellers. Given the wide ranging impact these incursions have on the local community we would like to consider a joint Topic Group with the Environment and Town & Communities Overview and Scrutiny Sub-Committees.

Report attached.

Officers advised members of the outcome of the performance in quarter 4 against the five indicators.

·         Reduce violence with injury – there were 1,821 reports of violence with injury during the 12 month period ending 31^st March 2016. This represented a significant increase against the target of 1,158 and an increase over the same period last year. The Sub-Committee had been advised previously that this target would not be met following changes to how the data was recorded, since the target was set.

Violence remained a key priority for Havering, with three key types of violence being managed through the MARAC (Domestic Violence), Safe & Sound (Night Time Economy Violence) and Serious Group Violence Panels.

·         Repeat Domestic Violence cases going to the MARAC – MOPAC had not set this target but the Council had set a local target to be in line with the national average. There was an additional target to increase the number of cases referred to the MARAC, which formed part of a funding bid to the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime (with funding being dependent on successfully meeting the target).

Reports of Domestic Violence continued to increase nationally. The target for MARAC referrals was 216, by the end of quarter 4 we had made 250 referrals.

·         Number of burglaries reported – The target of a 20% reduction over the last 4 years had been achieved but there was concern that the trend was for an increase.

·         Number of Antisocial Behaviour incidents – The number of incidents was lower than target but had increased marginally compared to the same period 12 months ago.

·         Reduce Robbery – Robbery was below target but notably higher that the same period last year.  The Havering Community Safety Partnership through its Serious Youth Violence panel would be targeting young persons to tackle this problem.

The Sub-Committee noted the report.

Report attached.

The Sub-Committee were advised that in 2016/17 the Overview & Scrutiny Sub-Committees would receive the Performance Indicators before Cabinet. This provided the opportunity to raise concerns with the Cabinet. Under the new arrangements the Sub-Committee would only receive three performance indicators, these were:

·         Repeat Domestic Violence cases going through the MARAC;

·         Number of antisocial behaviour incidents; and

·         Number of total Notifiable offences.

The number of repeat domestic violence cases going through MARAC was above the national average. There had been problems in recruiting and retaining Independent Domestic Violence Advocates with 2 FTE currently unavailable. The Victim Support IDVA service was struggling to meet demand across London and the issue had been raised with MOPAC..

The number of ASB incidents was just above target but was higher than the overall increase London wide.

Quarter one had seen a 18.5% increase in Total Notifiable offences.  Some of the increase was down to changes in recording practices but Havering was high compared to London as a whole. Work was on-going with the Safe Zones project with a target to complete one per month.

The Sub-Committee noted the report.

Attached for the Sub-Committee’s information is the Annual Report of 2015/16 which was considered by Council on 13 July 2016.

The Sub-Committee noted the Annual Report which had been submitted to Council on 13 July, 2016. The Sub-Committee confirmed that the Annual Report provided an accurate representation of their work in 2015/16.