Agenda and minutes

To approve as correct the minutes of the meetings held on 10 May 2011 and authorise the Chairman to sign them.

The minutes of the meeting held on 10 May 2011 were agreed as a correct record of the meeting, and signed by the Chairman.

Presentation by the new Havering Borough Director, Jacqui Himbury.

Jacqui Himbury, the Havering Borough Director, attended the meeting together with Nuzhat Anjum, Head of Public Health Commissioning attended the meeting. Nuzhat Anjum was responsible for the DAAT budgets across ONEL.  Havering’s performance was very good being in the top quartile in London for effective treatment rates.  The target for treating Problematic Drug Users in Havering for the year was 272 and it was projected that 317 would be treated.

The Havering Drug Intervention Programme was also strong across all diagnostic indicators with March performance showing Havering at 100% for diagnostic indicators 1,3 & 5 and 86% for diagnostic indicator 4.  However, the levels of substance misuse re-offending (NI 38) for Drug Intervention Programme clients was higher than predicted in the first two quarters of 2010/11. Havering was currently ‘Non Intensive’ so clients engage on a voluntary basis. To address this it was proposed that Havering DIP become an ‘Intensive DIP’. This would make it a legal requirement for any client testing positive for Class A drugs to engage with the DIP service.

The Pooled Treatment Budget for Havering for 2011/12 had gone up to £1,139,089, an increase of £70,136 in the Adult budget and £25,052 in the Young People’s budget. This allocation would be transferred from the PCT to the Local Authority. From 2011/12 part of the DIP funding would be paid to the PCT. For Havering this was £105,517, and this would be transferred to the Local Authority.

Nuzhat Anjum explained the areas for improvement in health. These included Shared Care improvements. There were only 25 clients in GP Shared Care in Havering, compared to 80 in Redbridge.  There were only 23 GP’s in Shared Care. Those who were interested were spread evenly across the two GP consortia. Health should be targeting GP’s where their was a prevalence of drug users. Locally Enhanced Services were in place. There was a need to transfer more clients into Shared Care.

Reference was also made to Alcohol Liaison with King georges Hospital. This was an area which needed improvement. Redbridge acted as lead for this project  NHS ONEL had funded a specialist worker for King Georges’. Havering referrals were being directed to Havering Treatment Services.

The Community Safety Manager advised the Committee that the Council work in partnership with the NHS on, inter alia, Domestic Violence. Havering have one of the best sanctioned detection rates in London.

The Chairman thanked Jacqui Himbury and Nuzhat Anjum for their interesting presentation.

Report attached.

The Committee gave consideration to it’s work plan for the forthcoming year. 2011/12 would see major changes and the Committee AGREED there would vary the programme to cover any major issues. Tha Committee AGREED the following provisional programme:

Report attached.

The Committee received details of the staffing budget for the Community Safety Section. There were currently 8.4 FTE staff in the section and the budget for staff was £459,580. Currently one of the Community Safety Officer posts was vacant, and if this post was not filled there would be a further saving of £51,615.66. In addition there was a temporary post of a full time ASB caseworker who was funded until July 2011, at a cost of £34,222. In response to a question the Community Safety Manager advised the Committee that further LAA funding had become available to fund this post for a further year.

No decision had yet been taken to fill the vacant post as a shortfall on CCTV was expected and this money would be needed to cover this.  The Head of Legal Services informed the Committee that whilst not all the borough was covered by CCTV the police were very supportive of the use of CCTV in Romford Town Centre especially. The cost of extending the coverage of CCTV had been looked at and one of the deciding factors was the cost of communication from outlying areas of the borough and the Control Centre.

The Committee was informed that the possible extension of CCTV and new ways of working drawing on the experience of neighbouring boroughs was being explored.

The report was noted.