Agenda and minutes

Venue: Committee Room 3A - Town Hall. View directions

Contact: James Goodwin 01708 432432 

Items
No. Item

22.

DISCLOSURE OF INTEREST

Minutes:

There wer no disclosures of interest.

 

23.

MINUTES OF THE MEETING pdf icon PDF 136 KB

To approve as correct the minutes of the meetings held on 17 January 2017 and authorise the Chairman to sign them.

 

Minutes:

The minutes of the meeting of the Sub-Committee held on 17 January 2017 were agreed and signed by the Chairman.

 

24.

YOUTH OFFENDING SERVICE - UPDATE pdf icon PDF 2 MB

Presentation attached.

Minutes:

The Sub-Committee received a presentation on the work of the Youth Offending Service in 2016/17.

 

In the year the service dealt with 152 offences over a third of which were violence against the person.

 

The cohort in 2016/17 was 100, 80 males and 20 females.  Historically Havering has had a proportionately large percentage of female offenders, most of whom were guilty of minor offences, such as shop lifting. Our neighbouring borough Barking & Dagenham similarly had a relatively high proportion of female offenders.

 

From 1st April 2015 to 31st March 2016 the Youth Service dealt with a cohort of 166 young people. Of these 30 committed a further offence between 1st April 2016 and 31st March 2017. Between them these young people had committed 67 re-offences. This represented a low level of re-offending.

 

Officers advised that historically the Council had been weak at delivering Restorative Justice.  A Restorative Justice action plan for improvement had been drawn up and a Restorative Justice worker appointed on a fixed term contract. If successful, this post was likely to become permanent.

 

The Restorative Justice lead also oversaw reparation, Unpaid Work and the Junior Attendance Centre.

 

The concept of Restorative Justice was to involve and support victims and involve them in face to face meetings with the perpetrators.

 

Junior Attendance Centres had been designed to deal with young people between the ages of 10 and 17 years who had offended. Their aim was to support the reduction of reoffending as part of a court ordered sentence. The court could direct a young offender to report to a centre for between 12 and 36 hours over the duration of their Order.

 

In April 2015 the responsibility for running the Junior Attendance Centres (JAC) was transferred to the Local Authorities. As of April 2016 the JAC had been running from a purpose built training centre in Romford. This was now a registered AQA Centre, enabling accreditation of each of the YP’s attendance. Both Barking & Dagenham and Redbridge use Havering’s JAC.

 

88 accreditations for young people’s work in the Junior Attendance Centre, Un Paid Work or reparation.

 

The Sub-Committee noted the report.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

25.

ANNUAL PREVENT REPORT pdf icon PDF 274 KB

To receive a presentation on the Councils Prevent Strategy.

 

Minutes:

The Sub-Committee were advised that every Local Authority had a duty to have ‘Due regard to the need to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism’. Havering had not been classified as a Priority borough and therefore received no Home Office funding but still had to fulfil the duty.

 

Officers had been successful in obtaining MOPAC funding to assist with fulfilling the duty.

 

The recent OFSTED inspection had found ‘In Havering coordination of services to combat radicalisation is effective and the work is well supported by the Police ‘Prevent’ officer, who works purposefully and in partnership with social care services to reduce risks to young people as well as to raise awareness’.

 

Despite the lack of Home Office funding Prevent Training had been delivered to all schools, all Safer Schools Officers trained on prevent and 250 front line staff trained. All venues had also been made aware of the prevent agenda to disrupt extremist speakers.

 

Officers informed the Sub-Committee that a dedicated Prevent / Hate Crime Officer was to be recruited and Havering would benefit from the new Tri Borough arrangements for the Metropolitan Police.

 

The Sub-Committee noted the report.

 

 

 

 

 

26.

REDUCING REOFFENDING STRATEGY pdf icon PDF 452 KB

To scrutinise the Councils Reducing Re-offending Strategy.

 

Additional documents:

Minutes:

Officers reported on the Reducing Reoffending Strategy.

 

It was estimated that approximately half of all crime committed was perpetrated by those who had already passed through the criminal justice system, therefore it was important to have a robust strategy to tackle reoffending.

 

Havering was committed to supporting those who want take a positive path in life, regardless of their previous history. In order to support them the partners had to be able to ensure that basic human needs were being met, which focussed on food, shelter and finances. The Adult Offender Profile for Havering had identified key areas as accommodation, alcohol and drugs, education, training and employment and finances.

 

The aims of the strategy were to:

 

       Develop and drive a consistent approach across agencies to information sharing and assessment and management of offenders in Havering. The outcome was improved efficiency by joining up the way local areas respond to offending.

 

       Support a consistent approach to recognising and commissioning what works in supporting the criminogenic needs of offenders, rehabilitation and reform, the outcome being to prevent reoffending.

 

       Support a targeted enforcement approach which should aim to deliver swift and sure justice to the most harmful offenders who were unwilling to engage and who showed no signs of motivation to change.

 

 

Within Havering 85.1% of offenders were male with 14.9% female, this being the highest proportion of female offenders in London.

 

The Sub-Committee noted the report.

 

 

 

 

27.

SERIOUS YOUTH VIOLENCE WORK PROGRAMME pdf icon PDF 566 KB

To receive a presentation on the Serious Youth Violence work programme.

 

Minutes:

The Sub-Committee were informed that between April 2016 and March 2017 the Havering Serious Group Violence Panel (SGV) had monitored 112 different nominal. Of these only 1 in 4 featured on the Police Trident Gangs Matrix.  The emphasis for Havering has been prevention, so efforts have concentrated on those at risk of being drawn into gang activity rather than those already in a gang, although those were not overlooked.

 

The last meeting of the Havering SGV had taken place on 2nd March 2017. This was being replaced by a new Tri-Borough partnership meeting which took place on the 20th April. This created new opportunities for Havering.

 

Throughout the year 1.1 sessions had been delivered to nominal identified through the SGV and YOS. This had included 307 hours of mentoring carried out by Spark2Life with 25 different young people benefitting. Training has been delivered to front line staff and numerous programmes delivered at school to Rise awareness.

 

The introduction of the tri-borough partnership gave Havering access to the East Area Gangs Unit which comprises 15.5 dedicated police officers. This specialist and proactive policing unit targets and disrupts those involved in gang activity and serious youth violence in the London Boroughs of Barking & Dagenham, Havering and Redbridge.

 

Even though Havering did not receive Home Office funding but it was not considered a borough with a gang problem the work that had been delivered was seen as ground breaking by others.

 

The Sub-Committee noted the report.

 

 

28.

VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN AND GIRLS WORK PROGRAMME pdf icon PDF 314 KB

To receive a presentation on the Violence Against Women and Girls work programme.

 

Minutes:

The Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) Strategy had been produced by the Community Safety and approved by the Havering Community Safety Partnership. This ran for 4 years and was due to be renewed this year. The VAWG Partnership met quarterly to inform and implement the VAWG Action Plan. The aims of the strategy were:

 

·         Preventing Violence & Abuse;

·         Provision of Services;

·         Pursuing Perpetrators; and

·         Partnership Working.

 

80% of the recipients of services were women but a bespoke service was provided to the 20% of male victims.

 

Officers explained that the new Metropolitan Police tri-borough arrangement would provide greater opportunities to work with the neighbouring boroughs Barking & Dagenham and Redbridge.

 

The Community Safety Partnership had met all their MOPAC targets but had seen an increase from 2094 in 2015/16 to 2303 in 2016/17. This increase was mirrored across London.

 

The target for 2017/18 would be to achieve a reduction in repeat victimisation. There was still a concern that Domestic Violence crimes were still unreported, so if we saw an increase this would be a positive step provided that repeat victimisation was down.

 

Officers reported that the new draft strategy would be available in October.

 

The Sub-Committee noted the report.

 

29.

UPDATE ON THE WORK OF THE SAFER NEIGHBOURHOOD BOARD pdf icon PDF 225 KB

To consider the attached report.

 

Minutes:

In the absence of the Chairman of the Safer Neighbourhood Board consideration of this item was deferred.

 

Officers advised that the current Chairman would be stepping down after three years and the Sub-Committee placed on record their appreciation of this effects in ensuring the Safer Neighbourhood Borough had been seen as a leader in London.

 

30.

URGENT BUSINESS

Minutes:

Since the agenda was published a number of issues had arisen which the Sub-Committee felt should be considered as a matter of urgency as these issues were time sensitive.

 

The Sub-Committee were concerned at the increase in illegal ‘drifting’ on the Ferry Lane industrial estate. Officers advised that the Police had carried out two exercises to curtail this activity but unless physical changes were introduced the problem would not go away. Officers were in discussions with the Business Improvement District seeking their approval and support for a number of measures. An update would be provided to a future meeting.

 

Members of the Sub-Committee had been notified by residents of a potential problem with mopeds and scooters in Upminster Road South. The Borough Commander informed the Sub-Committee that whilst the theft of Mopeds and Scooters was on the rise the Police had not been notified of any specific problems in Upminster Road South.

 

Problems in Harold Hill with young people causing ASB on mopeds and scooters had been tackled by the use of Section 35 allowing the seizure of the machines and their subsequent destruction.

 

The Sub-Committee thanked officers for their responses.